while many of the scenes are delineated by pantomimic attitudes and motions.

As my learned friend, Mr. Stanton, of Hongkong writes:"Their scenery is inferior to what ours was, at the Cockpit and Globe theatres in Shakspere's time, and about equal to Peter Quince's scenery in his 'most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby,' as shown in the 'Midsummer Nights Dream', where a man with loam over him represents a wall and his spread open fingers a cranny for lovers to whisper through. The orchestra, which through the ear-splitting nature of its music, is the great hindrance to foreigners enjoying a play, occupies the rear-central part of the stage between the doorways leading to the green-room. This green-room is an interesting place, full of strange things and stranger looking people, of arms, and armour of every period of Chinese history except the last 200 years, of hideous masks, and beards of various colours, of richly embroidered robes and patched rags, and so on. One dirty looking fellow dons imperial robes and flowing beard and struts the stage a full-blown Emperor, another slips on embroidered robes and long moustache and is transformed into a sapient Minister of State, another daubs his cheeks with paint, puts on a coiffure, a lady's dress and tiny shoes and totters about a golden-lilied princess; and so on with all the rest-gods, genii, heroes and villains. They make up very clevery, especially the men who impersonate females."

A few of the leading lights of the Chinese stage receive salaries ranging from 5000 to 9000 dollars per annum, and the lesser ones from 600 to 1200 dollars a year. But their life is not altogether a very enviable one; and most of them are confirmed opium smokers. Unlike our actors they are looked down upon and despised, and can never rise to any position, however clever they may be.

At half past eleven we come out of the theatre, after spending a couple of hours most enjoyably in the battles and love scenes of some bygone dynasty. Now we will return home.

What a transformation Queen's Road has undergone within an hour or two! Before, all was bustle-now, all is silent and quiet, save for the occasional regulation thief-warning tramp of a policeman,

or the voice of a chair or ricksha coolie soliciting a fare. But hark-what is that sharp note, as of a castinet? That sound somehow seems familiar to me. Ah, yes-poor creatures, here they come. A young girl-a "sing-song" girl, walking hand-inhand and chatting pleasantly with an aged woman. Both are blind-the blind leading the blind; but the poor creatures seem happy-happier indeed and more contented than most of their sex you meet. Hongkong by night would not be complete without its poor blind nightingales.

Hullo! what's that bell ringing for? I thought so-here they come dashing along. FIRE! fire! Stand aside please. All right constable - good night. We are not in for this sport-we shall see it all and a great deal more in to-morrow's papers. There goes a poor reporter for copy-buttoning his clothes over his pyjamas.

One night, when a great conflagration was in full blaze, and the shore and floating engines were all in use, an event occurred which was nearly the cause of another fire, perhaps of a worse nature. A sergeant of the police on entering a Chinese house to seize some opium, about which he had evidently got information, found congregated there a large party of gamblers who, in their desperate hurry to escape, knocked over two kerosine lamps, leaving the sergeant to fight the flames which he accomplished successfully in place of arresting the gang of rascals.

XXV. AN INTERESTING CASE.*

FEW people, not even

EW people, not even our zealous missionaries, who dwell in the central quarter of Hongkong, especially the wealthier portions of the community, know or have any adequate idea how some of the poorer people inhabiting the outlying districts east and west of them live or, more properly speaking, manage to exist-which is very often a puzzle to themselves; or what sort of people they are who do actually exist there. No doubt some imagine they know all about it, others make a few half-hearted inquiries, while the large majority rarely condescend to give this distasteful subject a thought; and if the thought comes, they ignominiously dispel it as bearing no affinity to their business. Most of the residents know where the Jewish fraternity all herd together in the good old Mesopotamian style-clustering about their headman; and where the Parsees, Mahomedans, and Armenians live happily on first floors, using the ground floors for opium godowns, while they eternally up-end the "Almighty Dollar." Dollar." We know all about these worthy people, except their own business, which, unlike most men, they mind themselves. The Chinese live all about the European residents, and we pretend to know all about their funny little ways, and characteristics, and even write about them. While "John's" wee ferret eyes unceasingly blink-for he knows we know nothing at all—at least nothing of any importance.

I do not say that Hongkong is the only place where this uncharitable ignorance exists, for even in Shanghai with all its

* This originally appeared as a letter in the Hongkong Daily Press and at the time excited a correspondence altogether too voluminous to include in this work.

philanthropists and charitable institutions, and its well endowed missions, is exactly the same-if not more ignorant in this respect. As an instance of this, I will, before proceeding further, open the eyes of some by relating a sad event which took place in Shanghai some six or seven years ago. There was one general reporter, on the staff of a well-known journal there, named Thomas Marshall, who was of an eminently respectable old English family, his father being, I believe, a colonel in the army. Now Marshall, who was a well-educated and gentlemanly fellow and a smart writer when he chose to wield the quill-used to suffer from periodical attacks of ebriety, at which times be became very irregular in his habits and failed to adequately perform his duties. So he was discharged; and most people knew, or made it their business to find out, why. Give a dog a bad name and it will stick to him, above all places it will stick fastest in Shanghai. Consequently the unfortunate ex-reporter was unable to obtain any further employment. He had not sufficient money to leave the Settlementand he was too proud to beg or even to write home. I myself used to frequently see him of a morning going from one hong to another along the Bund-on the alert for any vacancy which might (but never would) occur for him.

After a time I quite lost sight of him, and, concluding that he must have left the Settlement, I thought no more about him. Months passed away and at length I left Shanghai for the North. of China. Some three years afterwards a paragraph in a Shanghai paper caught my eye. It was a brief account of the death of poor Marshall-it was a glaring proof of the injustice that had been done him. It recalled very forcibly to my mind the words of Juvenal:

"Want is the scorn of every wealthy fool,

And wit in rags is turned to ridicule."

His untimely death was indeed a stern reproach to the foreign community of Shanghai, by whom it ought not to be forgotten; and also a stern warning to young men leaving England to take up positions in our far eastern colonies.

It appeared from the evidence of a ricksha coolie, his last

friend on earth, that the poor fellow had tried everywhere but failed to obtain employment of any kind. He soon ran short of money, and rather than also run into debt-as many would have pardonably done-he quietly moved into a small room, a miserable little hole in a Chinese house in China-town. There he used to write some of his clever articles and essays, most of which were returned to him, with those well-known words "declined with thanks and regrets." He never complained to anyone; and when he was seen, he was always dressed respectably and even carefully; and he always smiled and nodded pleasantly to those whom he knew those who had claimed his friendship when he was in better circumstances. He grew perceptibly thinner, though—thin from want of proper food. The beautiful part of this painful story comes in here.

Poor Marshall was always kind and gentle-of a gentle, sensitive nature; and was friendly and considerate to everybody even down to his Chinese "boy," who, strange to relate, became really devoted to him. When the master left the staff of the newspaper, the servant followed him and, although he knew that his master had not money to pay him wages, he waited on him and lived with him, and they went down the hill together. The boy also tried to obtain work as both his master and he had not food to eat. He was equally unfortunate. At last he managed to hire a ricksha, and turned ricksha-coolie.

Marshall grew weaker and thinner, and latterly was not able to leave the hovel in which they lived-so his maintenance fell entirely upon the faithful "boy" whose small earnings were sometimes hardly sufficient to give them congee-still he managed somehow to pay for the room and give his master some food to eat. But the poor friendless fellow grew weaker and weaker, and at last was not able to eat the rice given him. In this dire extremity he sent a polite letter to one of his countrymen in the Settlement, asking him to kindly send him a plate of soup, as he was very ill and unable to get out. The proud foreigner did not respond or deign to reply to this urgent and final appeal. A few days afterwards-in one of the richest and proudest communities in he world and on the very doorstep, as it were, of princely