[26] See [Appendix IV].
[27] For interesting details of the smuggling organisation which lasted up to the middle of the present century, see 'Smuggling Days and Smuggling Ways,' by the Hon. Henry N. Shore, R.N.
[28] The modern ship carries 70 to 75 per cent of dead-weight over her registered tonnage, and of weight and measurement combined about double.
[29] The American and British clippers were originally built of wood sheathed with metal. After that came trial of iron ships coated with tallow, but finally at the climax of the sailing clippers' notable races they were all of composite construction—i.e., iron frames planked with wood and sheathed with yellow metal. This type of vessel (now out of date) was the essential feature of the fastest sailing China clippers. Thereupon followed the iron and steel steamship as the permanent carrier, and the white-winged argosies were no more!
[30] Mr James MacCunn of Greenock says that all these racing clippers, which were practically the same size, carried double crews, numbering about thirty-three all told, equal to that of a 2500-tons merchantman of to-day. The Sir Lancelot, besides the shingle ballast below the tea, carried 100 tons fitted kentledge in the limbers stowed between skin and ceiling, whereby great "stiffness" was ensured—a factor of much value in beating down the China Sea against the monsoon, and at other times in "carrying on" under a heavy press of canvas.
[31] China in 1857-58. Routledge.
[32] The Fankwae at Canton.
[33] Apart from their liberality in the conduct of business, the generosity of the Chinese mercantile class, their gratitude for past favours, are so remarkable as to be incomprehensible to the Western mind. An account of them would read like a "fairy tale."
[34] The Straits of Malacca, &c. By J. Thomson.
[35] The tonnage entered and cleared for the year 1898 amounted to 17,265,780, of which one-half was under the British flag.