reward of 50 dollars for every tiger killed. So soon as the track of a tiger has been struck, the natives usually dig a pit fifteen or twenty feet deep, which they cover slightly with grass and brushwood, and fasten close by a goat, a dog, or some other living creature. As soon as the tiger, eager for his prey, seeks to seize the poor animal, the brushwood gives way under him and he falls into the pit, where he is speedily finished with muskets.
The entire population of the island amounts to about 100,000 souls, of which the greater number, say 60,000, inhabit the town itself or the surrounding villages. One meets here with a singular mixture of races, Europeans, Malays, Chinese, Klings (as the natives of the Coromandel coast are called), Arabs, Armenians, Parsees (Fire-worshippers), Bengalees, Burmese, Siamese, Bugis (from Celebes), Javanese, and from time to time visitors from every corner of the Archipelago. Of these the Europeans, although exercising far the largest and most preponderating influence upon the trade of the place, are much the weakest in point of numbers, the entire community not exceeding 300 or 400 on the whole island. On the other hand, the Chinese out-number all the rest, and are still constantly on the increase. Every year, as the N.E. monsoon sets in, in December and January, vast swarms of Chinese flock hither, fleeing from the poverty and distress of their native land. There are individuals, who make a regular trade of importing into Singapore coolies from China and the Coromandel coast. At the port of embarkation,
each coolie engages with the captain, to serve one year after his arrival in Singapore with a European or native master, and to repay the cost of his passage out of his monthly wages. He usually receives at first 3 dollars a month (about 12s. 6d.), out of which he lays aside 1 1⁄2 dol., and so gradually pays off his indebtedness to the ship captain. The passage-money, which a few years back was only about 10 or 12 Rs. (£1 to £1 4s.), is at present as high as 20 Rs., or £2. After the first year his earnings may amount to about 4 or 5 dols. a month. If, however, the coolie have repaid his debt, he is free, and may either earn a very good wage as a servant, or start in any business for himself. The facilities for earning money are so great here for men of industry and steadiness, that a few years' stay suffices to convert these naked, filthy, hang-dog looking wretches into clean well-to-do workmen, and some of them even attain a certain status in the community, as planters and merchants. Many a Chinese, who is now an important and wealthy man, possessed not a farthing when he landed on the hospitable shore of the English colony. The number of Chinese resident in Singapore is estimated at 60,000, or nearly two-thirds of the entire population of the island.
We need not feel surprised therefore to find that the long-tailed children of the Flowery Land living in Singapore have begun to develope a certain taste for luxury. They already boast a theatre of their own, a wooden booth, like a gigantic dolls' house, in which actors from China yell out their "sing-song,"
while the auditory, penned in within a carefully-locked court-yard, chant a vociferous accompaniment to this somewhat monotonous exhibition. Moreover, Singapore possesses a Chinese temple of such splendour, that one would hardly find its match in the Flowery Land itself. This is called the Telloh-Ayer, situated in the street of the same name, and is decorated with handsome carvings, innumerable mysterious inscriptions, and grotesque figures of stone and wood. The Chinese who conducted us all round were exceedingly friendly, and when, at parting, we slid a few pieces of silver into their hands as a recompense for their trouble, they gave vent to their feelings in repeated chin-chins, a mode of greeting which corresponds to the Salaam of the Mahometan races.
Many of the Chinese of Singapore belong to secret societies (Hóes), the members of which seem banded together for both good and bad objects and for mutual protection. Their rules are so strict, and their slightest infraction is so fearfully punished, that hardly an instance has ever been known of an associate having been denounced or proved a traitor. In the British possessions, where the government attaches no sort of importance to these associations, and suffers them to pass unmolested so long as the laws of the country are not violated, these societies are unimportant, and are productive of no evil consequences; but in the Dutch East Indies, where the government has always kept their subjects in a state of tutelage, and is in a marked degree adverse to the Chinese
settled in their colonies, these secret societies assume a far more dangerous character, and murders on purely political grounds are far from infrequent.
The natives proper of Singapore are Malays, and their language is that most in use for general intercourse and trade. But as open-air labourers they are far inferior to the Chinese, who are much more enduring, more contented, and more sociable. In this connection the following comparative statement, prepared a few years since by W. J. Thompson, Esq., government engineer in Singapore, of the relative values of English and Chinese labour, will be found of much interest. To build a wall in England containing 306 cubic feet would, according to Mr. Thompson's estimate, employ one bricklayer and one ordinary labourer 4 44⁄100 days, the former receiving 5s. 6d. per day, the latter 3s. 6d., the total expense amounting to 30s. In Singapore a similar piece of work, executed by Chinese labourers, would require 8 54⁄100 days, and the daily wage would amount to 2s. 9 3⁄5d. for the bricklayer and 1s. 7 3⁄5d. for his assistant, the total expense amounting to 37s. 6d. Thus, English labour shows an economy over Chinese in the proportion of 52 to 100 in time, and of 4 to 5 in actual expense. The following is also interesting by way of confirmation. It had been resolved to fill up a swamp in Singapore, the material for which was at hand at either extremity. The swamp was 1200 feet long, 1 foot deep, and 21 feet wide. The contract was allotted to the Chinese, and completed in 326 working days, at 13 cents or 11 1⁄2d. a day. An English,
or indeed any other European labourer, would have completed the same in 187 days, so that here also English or European labour in general is more valuable than Chinese or any other Asiatic labour in the proportion of 100 to 57.
These results must not however be held to indicate that the Chinese labourer possesses less physical strength than the European, nor must we leave out of view this element in the calculation, that the one executes his work in a temperate, the other in an excessively hot climate, to which European labourers speedily succumb, or at all events lose their powers and their strength in a very marked degree. Indeed it seems to decide the question in favour of the Chinese over the European labourer, that the former can work without taking any heed for his health in even the most variable temperatures. These instructive comparisons seem to be in so far especially valuable and useful, wherever it is projected to carry out certain undertakings, the cost of which may be estimated, due reference being had to the well-ascertained expense of constructing similar works in Europe.