hen asked his opinion of an offending
white brother, delicately hinted his distrust by replying: "Sar, if I
was a chicken, and that man was about, I should take care to roost
high." Well, all that we can say of China is, that for a long time she
"roosted high"--withdrew suspiciously into her own civilization to
escape the rough contact with the harsher side of ours.

But, by a sudden inspiration of almost miraculous confidence, springing
from a faith in the nobler qualities of our Caucasian civilization, she
has changed her policy. She has learned that in the language, and on the
lips, and in the hearts of most members of the English race, there is
such a word as equity, and at the magic of that word she has nearly
emerged from her isolation. And, sir, what we see here to-day reminds me
that, some thirty years ago, Boston confined one of her citizens in a
lunatic asylum, for the offence of being possessed by a too intensified
Boston "notion." He had discovered a new and expeditious way of getting
to China. "All agree," he said, "that the earth revolves daily on its
own axis. If you desire," he therefore contended, "to go to China, all
you have to do is to go up in a balloon, wait till China comes round,
then let off the gas, and drop softly down." Now I will put it to you,
Mr. Mayor, if you are not bound to release that philosopher from
confinement, for has not his conception been realized?--has not China,
to-day, unmistakably come round to us?

And now, sir, a word as to the distinguished gentleman at the head of
the Embassy--a gentleman specially dear to the Press. Judging from the
eagerness with which the position is sought, I am led to believe that
the loftiest compliment which can be paid to a human being is, that he
has once represented Boston in the National House of Representatives.
After such a distinction as that, all other distinctions, however great,
must still show a sensible decline from political grace. But I trust
that you will all admit, that next to the honor of representing Boston
in the House of Representatives comes the honor of representing the vast
Empire of China in "The Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World."
Having enjoyed both distinctions, Mr. Burlingame may be better qualified
than we are to discriminate between the exultant feelings which each is
calculated to excite in the human breast. But we must remember that the
population, all brought up on a system of universal education, of