The manufactories and trades of Canton are numerous: there is no machinery, properly so called, consequently there are no extensive manufacturing establishments similar to those which, in modern times, and under the power of machinery, have grown up in Europe. The Chinese know nothing of the economy of time. Much of the manufacturing business required to supply the commercial houses of Canton, is performed at Fuh-shan, a large town situated a few miles westward of the city; still, the number of hands employed, and the amount of labour performed here, are by no means inconsiderable.
There are annually about seventeen thousand persons, men, women, and children, engaged in weaving silk; their looms are simple, and their work is generally executed with neatness. The number of persons engaged in manufacturing cloth of all kinds, is about fifty thousand; when the demand is pressing for work, the number of labourers is considerably increased; the workmen occupy about two thousand, five hundred shops, averaging, usually, twenty in each.
We have heard it said, that some of the Chinese females, who devote their time to embroidering the choicest of the fabrics, secure a profit of twenty and sometimes even twenty-five dollars per month. Shoemakers are numerous and support an extensive trade, the number of workmen being about four thousand, two hundred. The number of those who work in brass, wood, iron, stone, and various other materials, is likewise large. Those who engage in each of these occupations form, to a certain degree, a separate community, having their distinct laws and rules for the regulation of business.
The book-trade of Canton is important, but we have not been able to obtain particulars in relation to its extent. The barbers form a separate department, and no one is allowed to perform the duties of tonsor until he has obtained a license.
According to their records, the number of this fraternity in Canton, at the present time, is seven thousand, three hundred!
There is another body of men, which we know not how to designate or describe; the medical community; which must not be passed over without notice. That these men command high respect and esteem whenever they show themselves skilled in their profession, there can be no doubt; it is generally admitted, also, that individuals do now and then, by long experience and observation, become able practitioners; but, as a community, they are anything rather than masters of the “healing art.” About two thousand of these “physicians” dwell in Canton.
No inconsiderable part of the multitude which composes the population of Canton lives in boats. There are officers appointed by government to regulate and control this portion of the city’s inhabitants. Every boat, of all the various sizes and descriptions that are seen here, is registered; and it appears that the whole number on the river, adjacent to the city, is eighty-four thousand. A great majority of these are tankea (egg-house) boats, called by some, sampans; these are generally not more than twelve or fifteen feet long, about six broad, and so low that a person can scarcely stand up in them: their covering, made of bamboo, is very light, and can be easily adjusted to the state of the weather. Whole families live in these boats, and in coops lashed on the outside of them they often rear large broods of ducks and chickens, designed to supply the city-markets. Passage-boats which daily move to and from the city-hamlets, ferry-boats which are constantly crossing and recrossing the river, huge canal-boats, laden with produce from the country, cruisers, pleasure-boats, &c. complete the list of these floating habitations, and present to the stranger a very interesting scene.
POPULATION.
There has been considerable diversity of opinion in relation to the population of Canton. The division of the city which brings a part of it into Nan-hae, and a part into Pwang-yu, precludes the possibility of ascertaining the exact amount of population. The facts which we have brought into view in the preceding pages, perhaps will afford the best data for making an accurate estimate of the number of inhabitants in the city. There are, we have already seen, fifty thousand persons engaged in the manufacture of cloth, seven thousand, three hundred barbers, and four thousand, two hundred shoemakers; but these three occupations employing sixty-one thousand, five hundred individuals, do not, probably, include more than one fourth of the craftsmen in the city; allowing this to be the fact, the whole number of mechanics will amount to two hundred and forty-six thousand; these, we suppose, are a fourth part of the whole population, exclusive of those who live on the rivers. In each of the eighty-four thousand boats, there are not less, on an average, than three individuals; making a total of two hundred and forty-two thousand; if to them we add two hundred and forty-six thousand, (which is the number of mechanics,) the amount will be one million, two hundred and thirty-six thousand, as the probable number of inhabitants in Canton.
This number may possibly be incorrect; no one, however, who has had an opportunity of passing through the streets of the city, and viewing the multitudes that throng them, will think the estimate below one million.