Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 428

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Men and Things in Shanghai.

JULY,

ART. III. Men and things in Shanghai: scene changed; the spring propitious; early harvests plentiful; famine and beggary diminish- ed; a forced donation returned; the asylum for outcast children dismantled; unburied coffins : small por ; fever; moat and ditches excavated; smuggling; the opium question; Lord Palmerston's letter. Letter to the Editor from Spectator.

SIR: Since my last letter to you was written, the scene here has changed not a little,-in some respects for the better, but not in all. During the last two years, over the whole wide and populous plains of Kiángnán, there have been inundation and famine, accompanied by sickness, death, and civil disorders. Last winter formed the crisis in these calamitous events. It was a gloomy winter, a trying season to the Chinese. Badges of mourning were to be seen in almost every family; and then to these were added those of general mourning-first those decreed for the late empress-mother, and then those for H. I. M. The tonsure was interdicted; the theaters were closed; and no voice or instrument of music was heard in the land. Business went on ; men bought; they sold; they builded; still everything seemed to drag heavily. But now the scene is changed.

'This spring season has been most propitious. During the succes- sive months of March, April and May, rain and sunshine, heat and cold, were so blended as to give great luxuriance to the whole vegeta- ble kingdom. The droughts and inundations of the two preceding years served in no small degree to give rest and consequent fertility to the soil: this and the "harmony of the elements," have conspired to gladden the hearts of the husbandmen.

The early harvests are all plentiful. Fruits, vegetables, wheat, barley, pease, beans, etc., are abundant. The crop of wheat, it is said will nearly or quite equal the total of the two preceding years. The tea and the mulberry, too, are yielding ample stores for all who are especially interested in those staple productions.

Famine and beggary have diminished, and in many places, entirely ceased. The great distress among the people, during last autumn and winter, was not occasioned by an entire absence of sustenance; there was "corn enough “in the land ; but quantities of it being hoarded up, the price was beyond the means of multitudes. Consequently, to sustain life, they had no alternative but either to beg or to rob. Some did the one, some the other; and some both robbed and begged, as best suited their taste and circumstances. The government saw and feit the emergency, and acted very promptly, on the one hand taking