At the same time the machina-facturing West will be in presence of a population the most universally and laboriously manufacturing of any on the earth. It can achieve victories in the contest in which it will have to engage only by proving that physical knowledge and mechanical skill, applied to the arts of production, are more than a match for the most persevering efforts of unscientific industry.
The journal proceeds as follows, under date of the 29th of March:—
I shall be a little curious to see my next letters. The truth is, that the whole world just now are raving mad with a passion for killing and slaying, and it is difficult for a person in his sober senses like myself to keep his own among them. However I shall be glad to see what Parliament says about Canton.
[Sidenote: Baths for the million.]
[Sidenote: Malevolence towards Chinese.]
March 30th.—Baron Gros arrived to-day. I forgot to mention that I visited the town of Shanghae yesterday, and among other things went into a bathing establishment, where coolies were getting steamed rather than bathed at rather less than a penny a head, which penny includes, moreover, a cup of tea. So that these despised Chinamen have bathing-houses for the million. With us they are a recent invention: they have had them, I believe, for centuries. I am told that they are much used by the labouring class. I was struck by an instance of the malevolence towards the Chinese, which I met with to-day. Baron Gros told me that a boat with some unarmed French officers and seamen got adrift at a place called the Cape of Good Hope, as he was coming up from Hong-Kong. They found themselves off an island, on the shore of which a crowd of armed Chinese collected. Their situation was disagreeable enough. Next day, however, the body of the Chinese dispersed, and a few who remained came forward in the kindest manner offering them food, &c. They stated that they came down in arms to defend themselves, fearing that they were pirates, but that as they were peaceful people they were glad to serve them. I have heard the first part of this story from two other quarters, but the latter part was in both cases omitted.
[Sidenote: Burial practices.]
April 3rd.—I took another walk yesterday into the country, and saw a kind of tower where dead children, whom the parents are too poor to bury, are deposited. It is a kind of pigeonhouse about twenty feet high, and the babies are dropped through the pigeon-holes. After that I walked into a spacious building where coffins containing dead bodies are stored, awaiting a lucky day for the burial, or for some other reason. The coffins are so substantial and the place so well ventilated that there was nothing at all disagreeable in it. There is something touching in the familiarity with which the Chinese treat the dead.
[Sidenote: Roman Catholic mission.]
Shanghae.—Easter Sunday.—I have been at church…. In the afternoon I walked to the Roman Catholic cathedral, which is about three miles from the Consulate. I found a really handsome, or at any rate spacious, building, well decorated. The priests were very civil. They count 80,000 converts (a considerable portion, I take it, descendants of the Christian converts made by the missionaries ages ago) in this province. It is impossible to help contrasting their proceedings with those of the Protestants. They come out here to pass the whole of their lives in evangelising the heathen, never think of home, live on the same fare and dress in the same attire as the natives. The Protestants (generally) hardly leave the ports, where they have excellent houses, wives, families, go home whenever self or wife is unwell, &c. I passed an American missionary's house yesterday. It was a great square building, situated in a garden, and at the entrance gate there was a modest barn-like edifice, large enough to hold about twenty sitters, which on inquiry I found to be the church. These people have excellent situations, good salaries, so much for every child, allowances for sickness, &c. They make hardly any converts, but then they console themselves by saying, that the Roman Catholics who make all these sacrifices do it from a bad motive, teach idolatry, &c. I cannot say, but I must admit that the priests whom I met to-day talked like very sensible men, and that the appearance of the young Chinamen (séminaristes) whom I saw was most satisfactory. They had an intelligent, cheerful look, greatly superior to that of the Roman Catholic seminarists generally in Europe. The priests bear testimony to their aptitude in learning, their docility and good conduct. They have an organ in the cathedral, the pipes of which are all made of bamboo. It seems to have an excellent tone.
[Sidenote: and college.]