rego the chance of seizing some special
advantage in the colossal grab-bag which is China. And so it seems likely
that the genial commercial adventurers and gamblers and vice promoters of
Shanghai will go on sowing the wind in China--and that the sullen hate of
those silent, observing millions of yellow men will deepen and smoulder
until the final day of reckoning, the day of reaping, shall come.

There is one ray of light which, to-day, illuminates the China Coast. It
is a small ray, when we consider the number of dark corners to be
illuminated, and yet there is the bare possibility that it may prove the
beginning of better conditions. Somewhat less than two years ago the
United States government established a wholly new institution, the United
States Court for China. L. R. Wilfley, one of the legal officers whom
Judge Taft had trained in Manila during his governorship of the
Philippines, was appointed the first judge of this court, and was sent
out, with a district attorney, a marshal, and a clerk, to administer
justice to Americans up and down the China Coast and along the Yangtse
River. By treaty, all American citizens are exempt from judgment under the
Chinese law, that peculiar jumble of tradition, superstition, common
sense, and Oriental severity. Formerly, justice had been dealt out in
courts presided over by the consul-generals and the consuls in their
respective districts.

Now it should be obvious to the most casual observer that the peculiar
conditions and the peculiar industries which thrive in the treaty ports
give rise to a considerable number of legal entanglements. There is, of
course, a large volume of legitimate business transacted on the Coast,
which gives legitimate employment to a few lawyers; but there is a volume
of illegitimate and semi-legitimate business which would also naturally
give employment to other lawyers. At the time of Judge Wilfley's
appointment one thing was clear to the enlightened heads of our Department
of State at Washington; the consular courts, thanks to the skill and
resource of the American lawyer on the Coast, were in a constant tangle of
perplexed inefficiency, and the American name was sinking steadily lower
in China.

It is likely that no American judge ever faced so peculiar and difficult a
task as that assigned to Judge Wilfley. It was his duty to take the place
of a lacking public opinion, and to raise the drooping prestige of his
country. He had behind him no sett