VI.] NEWSLETTERS-PLACARDS. 181 The English and French were thoroughly defeated. Fifteen thousand were slain. Five thousand escaped with their lives and tried to get back to Takoo. Midway, however, they again encountered Prince Tseng's army, and in the battle which followed four thousand were killed! One thousand and upwards were taken alive, and brought before Prince Tseng for his orders. The Prince put out the eyes of 200 of the most able-bodied, or else cut off their noses, and then let them go back to Takoo. Two hundred beaten soldiers at last got back to Takoo, and saw the English and French admirals, who were greatly wroth when they saw the disgrace of these men, and their gall and liver were thoroughly disturbed. They wished to retreat with the English soldiers to Shanghai; but as the frost had set in, and they moreover feared the ridicule of the barbarians of all countries, they were greatly perplexed, and they are now holding the Takoo Forts. "It is reported that all the barbarian newspapers say that Pekin has been taken, and that His Majesty the Emperor and his ministers have fled; but these are all falsehoods, and must not be believed. "I also send you a picture which will explain everything. "There were also more than thirty ships of war belonging to the Americans, Spaniards, Dutch, and Russians, who saw all the fighting at Takoo." In the absence of a public press, advertisements of public auctions, tenements to let, &c., &c., appear in the form of placards. The subscription lists of benevolent funds are published in the same way; and when a temple or a public hall has been erected by voluntary contributions, the treasurer usually has a placard pasted on the walls of the building to show how the funds have been laid out. Placards are also resorted to as a means of ventilating grievances of all sorts; and an oppressive official, or a citizen who has made himself obnoxious, may awake some morning to find the bitter complaint of one whom he has injured, or the plain-spoken opinion of an anonymous critic, posted on his door. Poor people oppressed by opulent neighbours, and unable to obtain an audience of a magistrate because they cannot fee his underlings, have recourse to them to make known their grievances. Those who cannot even afford to pay for the printing of a placard often seat themselves near the doors of those who have injured them, and proclaim their grievances to passers-by. I once came upon an old woman sitting near the door of a house, and loudly accusing the occupant of having kidnapped her daughter. In a country in which the fourth estate exists in so rudimentary a form, where there are no railroads and telegraphs, and which has no properly organized postal arrangements, public opinion is essentially local in its tone. It is almost entirely the creation of a middle class known as the "literary and gentry," who stand midway between a vast body of interested officials on the one hand, and the mass of the people on the other. This middle class consists of those who have been admitted to a government examination, but who have not succeeded in being of the select number to whom degrees are granted. exercise a salutary and, within limits, a powerful influence. They "They act," writes Mr. Low from the United States Legation, at Pekin, in an official letter to his government, "as advisers to the lower classes, and their good offices are sought by the governing class in the management of local concerns. By their superior intelligence they are enabled to control most of the property, and yet few acquire such wealth as would enable them to oppress the people, were they so disposed. "This class create the public opinion of the country, which exercises a controlling influence over the officials, and is usually powerful enough to thwart the intentions and nullify the action of the officers, from the emperor down, whenever popular rights are in danger of being invaded or the people unduly oppressed. So powerful is the influence of the literati that all officials endeavour to conform their action to the popular will, and in this view the government of China is essentially democratic in practice." 1 There is no postal system under the direction of the government. In a large city, like Canton, there are houses where letters addressed to persons residing at distant ports are received and forwarded. At their destination the letters are delivered by agents, who collect the postage on delivery. As a rule, such letters are intrusted to the captains of passenger boats. In such cases, the letter is sometimes prepaid, the sender writing on the envelope the amount he has paid. In some instances, the postage is paid on receipt, the sender recording on the envelope the amount which it is necessary for the receiver to pay, and prepaying the postage of the reply. The Chinese are tolerable adepts at letter-writing, and it is customary for them to correspond with relatives or friends at a dis tance. Persons who cannot write have letters written for them by fortunetellers, who are scribes as well. 2 The letter is under date Jan. 10, 1871. CHAPTER VII. MARRIAGE. PROBABLY no other nation sets such store by the maxim that "in the multitude of a people is the King's honour, but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince;" and from the earliest times the institution of marriage has occupied an important place in the polity of the Chinese. Young men and maidens are made to feel that it is their duty to become the founders of small communities of rational creatures, from whom in turn other communities are to spring. The more children-especially male children-a Chinese has, the more he is reverenced, a large family of sons being regarded as a mark of the divine favour. Indeed, the desire for male offspring seems to have as strong a hold upon this people as it had upon the ancient Jews, although the motives which actuated Hebrew parents in praying that sons might be given to them are wanting to the Chinese. In their case also, however, the desire is one which has its root in religious belief. It is a natural outcome of the doctrine that the spirits of the departed are rendered happy by homage received at the hands of their male posterity. I remember being much impressed by the great grief with which an old lady with whom I was acquainted deplored the death of her son, who was upwards of sixty years of age, she herself being eighty-two years old. When I spoke to her grandsons, however, on the depth of their grandmother's sorrow, they explained to me that she especially grieved because death had removed the being whose homage she had looked forward to as the great source of her |