ace these men have done good work. Thieving in the city is now much
less common, and gambling, although still rife under cover--when will
the Chinese eradicate that inherent spirit?--is certainly being put
down. One of the features of their work also has been the improvement
they have effected in the appearance of the streets. Old customs are
dying, and at the present time if a man in his untutored little ways
throws his domestic refuse into the place where the gutter should have
been, as in olden days, he is immediately pounced upon, reprimanded by
the policeman on duty, and fined somewhat stiffly.

THE GAOL

A great fuss was made about me when I went to visit the governor of the
prison one wet morning. He met me with great ostentation at the
entrance, escorting me through a clean courtyard, on either side of
which were pretty flower-beds and plots of green turf, to a
reception-room. There was nothing "quadlike" about the place. This
reception-room, furnished on a semi-Occidental plan, overlooked the main
prison buildings, contained foreign glass windows draped with white
curtains, was scrupulously clean for China, and had magnificent hanging
scrolls on the whitewashed walls. Tea was soon brewed, and the governor,
wishing to be polite and sociable, told me that he had been in
Yuen-nan-fu for a few months only, and that he considered himself an
extremely fortunate fellow to be in charge of such an excellent
prison--one of the finest in the kingdom, he assured me.

After we had drunk each other's health--I sincerely trust that the cute,
courteous old chap will live a long and happy life, although to my way
of thinking the knowledge of the evil deeds of all the criminals around
me would considerably minimize the measure of bliss among such intensely
mundane things--I was led away to the prison proper.

This gaol, which had been opened only a few months, is a remarkably fine
building, and with the various workshops and outhouses and offices
covers from seven to eight acres of ground inside the city. The outside,
and indeed the whole place, bears every mark of Western architecture,
with a trace here and there of the Chinese artistry, and for carved
stone and grey-washed brick might easily be mistaken for a foreign
building. It cost some ninety thousand taels to build, and has
accommodation for more than the two hundred and fifty prisoners at
present confined within its walls.

After an hour's inspection, I came to th