on the counter were ticked off, rose a pile of
similar packages, which bid fair to become as high as that which had
excited our curiosity. All these drugs were put up neatly in the
light-yellow paper we are accustomed to see round our packs of
fire-crackers, and as neatly sealed with a little gum arabic. Indeed, it
is shrewdly suspected by Father Hue, from this prodigious liberality of
drugs, that the physicians feel bound to give a man all he pays for, in
the hope that out of a multitude of remedies some may chance to suit his
case. The foreign residents of Shanghai aver that the doctors take
contracts to cure their patients in a certain time, and if unsuccessful
at the stipulated day, their patients relieve their minds by a little
elegant abuse of their physician, and take the contract to the next in
their neighborhood.

It is not uncommon to see their dentists wandering through the streets
with rows of old fangs suspended from their necks like necklaces,
trophies of their skill; and every dead wall in the city has its
vermilion posters, advertising some great quack medicine, so that it is
quite evident that the science of medicine has reached that pitch of
refinement where a host of quacks can ply their arts with as much
success as among the western barbarians.

Heaven save us, though, from a Chinese doctor! Mechanical surgery is his
forte; for a stomach ache he will pinch your neck; for a broken rib he
will nearly crack the bones of your arm, and if you faint under this he
will hang you up by your heels to restore the circulation.

According to the diagrams published in the books on medicine, the
knowledge of anatomy possessed by the faculty in China is very slight,
and entirely erroneous; and in all their cures it is very probable that
nature, unassisted except by rest and fasting for a season, does the
work. They certainly are able to give her very little help.

It is noticeable, however, as a proof of the high esteem in which the
people hold the science, that the shops of the chemists and apothecaries
are kept by a superior class of people, more intelligent in appearance
than their neighbors, and holding a higher rank.

Of the lower trades there are innumerable shops, the variety of which is
almost bewildering. Every art and manufacture has its minute
subdivisions, and one meets, at every step, signs of the superior
civilization of the people in their admirable division of labor. Silk
looms are working in th