The Chinese.
——Gen. Grant, in responding to a cordial reception given him by the Chinese merchants of Penang, said that he never doubted, and no one could doubt, that, in the end, no matter what agitation might for the time being effect at home, the American people would treat the Chinese with kindness and justice, and not deny to the free and deserving people of that country the asylum they offer to the rest of the world.
——The bill introduced into the Senate by Slater, of Oregon, seems to be of some interest to the Chinaman in America. It provides that after July 1, 1880, no Chinaman shall be allowed to “engage in, carry on, or work at any manufacturing or mechanical business, or to own or lease, carry on or work any mine, or to own or lease any real estate for any other purpose than that of lawful commerce and for places of residence.” As if this were not enough, the Chinaman is forbidden to “work or engage to work as mechanic, artisan, laborer, waiter, servant, cook, clerk or messenger, or in any other capacity or at any other kind of labor, skilled or unskilled.” And there is a heavy penalty inflicted upon the Chinaman or American citizen who violates it. If such a bill should become a law there would be nothing left for the Chinaman to do except to climb a tree and stay there.
Africa.
——The London Missionary Society has received advices dated Jan. 23d, from Mr. Dodgshun. Preparations for proceeding to the lake from Kirasa were begun in June, 1878. Various delays have made progress very slow, as lack of porters and war between Mirambo and the Arabs, and Mr. D. had only then reached Unyanyembe. Meanwhile, three of the six who set out in August, ’77, were left on the field, and they the juniors of the expedition. Messrs. Hore and Hutley are at Ujiji. Two students of the Society have been appointed to join the force——Rev. W. Griffith and Mr. Southon, M. D. Dr. Mullens, the Foreign Secretary of the Society, offered himself to lead the new expedition. The Directors allowed him to go as far as Zanzibar, hoping that it would not be necessary for him to go farther. Central Africa seems yet to be a great way off.
——The following illustrates the exposure of African missionaries to suspicion and violence: “At Mukondoku in Ugogo we were within an ace of being attacked by over 100 of the natives, fully armed, and thirsting for the blood of the white men. Their only ground of complaint was that M. Broyon’s little child had lost a toy——an indiarubber doll——in our camp, which they found, and persisted in calling ‘medicine to ruin their country!’ When convinced that they were wrong, and that we had not the slightest wish to injure them, they only grew the more violent, and told the pagazi to leave us alone that they might kill us. A heavy payment of cloth smoothed the way for peace, but we fully expected to have to fight for our lives, as we had not a single man to be depended on to stand by us.”
——Mr. Mackay, of the C. M. S., at Lake Nyanza, writes that after his two years’ march he found the goods of the expedition in safety, but mixed in indiscriminate confusion. Ten days brought some order out of this chaos. The engines are complete, and almost everything, though divided into 70 lb. parcels for the journey of 700 miles, is at hand and in place.
——Mr. Mackay speaks thus of the evil of intemperance in Africa: “Oh, how often will I enter in my journal, as I pass through many tribes, Drink is the curse of Africa! Useguha, Usagara, Ugogo, Unyamwezi, Usukuma, Ukerewe, and Uganda too——go where you will, you will find every week, and, when grain is plentiful, every night, every man, woman and child, even to sucking infant, reeling with the effects of alcohol. On this account chiefly I have become a teetotaler on leaving the coast, and have continued so ever since. I believe, also, that abstinence is the true secret of continued and unimpaired health in the tropics. Whoever wishes to introduce civilization into Africa, let a sina quâ non of the enterprise be that its members be total abstainers.”