ague hope that, when
the foreign teachers regard him as adequately converted, they may be
willing to restore speech and hearing to his poor little offspring. It
is a scant harvest.

After a Chinese dinner the missionary and I went for a walk into the
country. In the main street we met a troop of beggars, each with a bowl
of rice and garbage and a long stick, with a few tattered rags hanging
round his loins--they were the poorest poor I had ever seen. They were
the beggars of the city, who had just received their midday meal at the
"Wanhsien Ragged Homes." There are three institutions of the kind in the
city for the relief of the destitute; they are entirely supported by
charity, and are said to have an average annual income of 40,000 taels.
Wanhsien is a very rich city, with wealthy merchants and great salt
hongs. The landed gentry and the great junk owners have their town
houses here. The money distributed by the townspeople in private charity
is unusually great even for a Chinese city. Its most public-spirited
citizen is Ch'en, one of the merchant princes of China whose
transactions are confined exclusively to the products of his own
country. Starting life with an income of one hundred taels, bequeathed
him by his father, Ch'en has now agents all over the empire, and
mercantile dealings which are believed to yield him a clear annual
income of a quarter of a million taels. His probity is a by-word; his
benefactions have enriched the province. That cutting in the face of the
cliff in the Feng-hsiang Gorge near Kweichou-fu, where a pathway for
trackers has been hewn out of the solid rock, was done at his expense,
and is said to have cost one hundred thousand taels. Not only by his
benefactions has Ch'en laid up for himself merit in heaven, but he has
already had his reward in this world. His son presented himself for the
M.A. examination for the Hanlin degree, the highest academical degree in
the Empire. Everyone in China knows that success in this examination is
dependent upon the favour of Wunchang-te-keun, the god of literature
(Taoist) "who from generation to generation hath sent his miraculous
influence down upon earth", and, as the god had seen with approbation
the good works done by the father, he gave success to the son. When the
son returned home after his good fortune, he was met beyond the walls
and escorted into the city with royal honours; his success was a triumph
for the city which gave him birth.

A sho