ained as to the accuracy of the popular
estimates of the amount of the town population of China. The cities
which I have visited are, no doubt, suffering at present from the
effects of the rebellion; but I cannot bring myself to believe that,
at the best of times, they can have contained the number of
inhabitants usually imputed to them. M. Hue puts the population of the
three cities of Woo-chang-foo, Han-yang-foo, and Hankow, at
8,000,000. I doubt much whether it now amounts, in the aggregate, to
1,000,000; and even when they were flourishing, I cannot conceive
where 3,000,000 of human beings could have been stowed away in them.

[Sidenote: Rural population.]
[Sidenote: Town population.]

What 1 have seen leads me to think that the rural population of China
is, generally speaking, well-doing and contented. I worked very hard,
though with only indifferent success, to obtain from them accurate
information respecting the extent of their holdings, the nature of
their tenure, the taxation which they have to pay, and other kindred
matters. I arrived at the conclusion that, for the most part, they
hold their lands, which are of very limited extent, in full property
from the Crown, subject to certain annual charges of no very
exorbitant amount; and that these advantages, improved by assiduous
industry, supply abundantly their simple wants, whether in respect of
food or clothing. In the streets of cities in China some deplorable
objects are to be met with, as must always be the case where mendicity
is a legalised institution; but I am inclined to think that the rigour
with which the duties of relationship are enforced, operates as a
powerful check on pauperism. A few days ago a lady here informed me
that her nurse had bought a little girl from a mother who had a
surplus of this description of commodity on hand. I asked why she had
done so, and was told that the little girl's husband, when she
married, would be bound to support the adopting mother. By the
judicious investment of a dollar in this timely purchase, the worthy
woman thus secured for herself a provision for old age, and a
security, which she probably appreciates yet more highly, for decent
burial when she dies.

[Sidenote: Manufactures.]

My general impression is, that British manufacturers will have to
exert themselves to the ut