Officials in all parts and benevolent societies take advantage of this passion for gambling in opening lotteries to raise funds for worthy objects—­a policy which is unwise if not immoral.  It should not be forgotten, however, that our own forefathers sometimes had recourse to lotteries to build churches.

The foreign settlement now stands on Shamien, a pretty islet in the river, in splendid contrast with the squalor of the native streets.  The city wall is not conspicuous, if indeed it is visible beyond the houses of a crowded suburb.  Yet one may be sure that it is there; for every large town must have a wall for protection, and the whole empire counts no fewer than 1,553 walled cities.  What an index to the insecurity resulting from an ill-regulated police!  The Chinese are surprised to hear that in all the United States there is nothing which they would call a city, because the American cities are destitute of walls.

Canton with its suburbs contains over two million people; it is therefore the most populous city in the empire.  In general the houses are low, dark, and [Page 12] dirty, and the streets are for the most part too narrow for anything broader than a sedan or a “rickshaw” (jinriksha).  Yet in city and suburbs the eye is dazzled by the richness of the shops, especially of those dealing in silks and embroideries.  In strong contrast with this luxurious profusion may be seen crowds of beggars displaying their loathsome sores at the doors of the rich in order to extort thereby a penny from those who might not be disposed to give from motives of charity.  The narrow streets are thronged with coolies in quality of beasts of burden, having their loads suspended from each end of an elastic pole balanced on the shoulder, or carrying their betters in sedan chairs, two bearers for a commoner, four for a “swell,” and six or eight for a magnate.  High officials borne in these luxurious vehicles are accompanied by lictors on horse or foot.  Bridegrooms and brides are allowed to pose for the nonce as grandees; and the bridal chair, whose drapery blends the rainbow and the butterfly, is heralded by a band of music, the blowing of horns, and the clashing of cymbals.  The block and jam thus occasioned are such as no people except the patient Chinese would tolerate.  They bow to custom and smile at inconvenience.  Of horse-cars or carriages there are none except in new streets.  Rickshaws and wheelbarrows push their way in the narrowest alleys, and compete with sedans for a share of the passenger traffic.

In those blue hills that hang like clouds on the verge of the horizon and bear the poetical name of White Cloud, there are gardens that combine in rich variety the fruits of both the torrid and the temperate zones.  Tea and silk are grown in many other [Page 13] parts of China; but here they are produced of a superior quality.

Enterprising and intelligent, the people of this province have overflowed into the islands of the Pacific from Singapore to Honolulu.  Touching at Java in 1850, I found refreshments at the shop of a Canton man who showed a manifest superiority to the natives of the island.  Is it not to be regretted that the Chinese are excluded from the Philippines?  Would not the future of that archipelago be brighter if the shiftless native were replaced by the thrifty Chinaman?