p and shifts
things, sometimes they have six or eight foot treadles. A lot of the
reeling isn't even foot power--just hand, though their hand reeler is
much more ingenious than the Japanese one. There seem so many places to
take hold and improve things and yet all of these are so tied together,
and change is so hard that it isn't much wonder everybody who stays here
gets more or less Chinafied and takes it out in liking the Chinese
personally for their amiable qualities.

Just now the students are forming a patriotic league because of the
present political situation, Japanese boycott, etc. But the teachers of
the Nanking University here say that instead of contenting themselves
with the two or three things they might well do, they are laying out an
ambitious scheme covering everything, and their energy will be exhausted
when they get their elaborate constitution formed, or they will meet so
many difficulties that they will get discouraged even with the things
they might do. I don't know whether I told you about the clerk in the
tailor shop in Shanghai; after taking the usual fatalistic attitude that
nothing could be done with the present situation, he said the boycott
was a good thing but "Chinaman he got weak mind; pretty soon he forget."

In various places there are lots of straw hats hung up painted in
Chinese characters where they have stopped passersby and taken their
hats away because they were Japanese made. It is all good natured and
nobody objects. There are policemen in front of Japanese stores, and
they allow no one to enter; they are "protecting" the Japanese. This is
characteristic of China. The policemen all carry guns with bayonets
attached; they are very numerous and slouch around looking bored to
death. The only other class as bored looking is the dogs, which are even
more numerous, and lie stretched out at full length, never curled up,
and never by any chance doing anything.

We visited the old examination halls which are now being torn down.
These are the cells, about 25,000 in number, where the candidates for
degrees used to be shut up during the examination period. Said cells are
built in long rows, under a lean-to roof, mostly opening face to face on
an open corridor, which is uncovered. Some of them face against a wall
which is the back of the next row of cells. Cells are two and one-half
feet wide by four long. In them are two ridges along the wall on each
side, one at the height of a seat, the