Page:Ningpo to Shanghai.djvu/49

Rh story 13 feet high, and the other stories of similar height apparently.

Immediately beneath the pagoda, N. W. is the town of Fong-je-how, and further on in a. nor' westerly direction are a series of lakes and winding streams between the hills and the River Tsien-tang. On the south foot of the hill under the pagoda is a capacious monastery, with good accommodation for the foreign traveller if he require it. But at Foong-je-how there are three firms, viz the Wan-ho, the Ling-jin, and the Ta-heu, all doing a stirring business in tea and silk with the northern consular Ports. The head of the first named, a gentleman of the name of Luh-ching woo, (11) is prone to hospitality, and will not permit the foreigner to remain at the monastery outside.

From Mr Luh or his brothers, the traveller may gain much useful and interesting information. From him it was learnt that though there were as many as 5,000 families in the town, say 25,000 people, there was not one officer of government; and as this place may be taken as an index of towns of similar size throughout the country, we here see upon what erroneous bases we speak when we say that to destroy the government, as established in a walled city, we leave nothing to follow but anarchy for the mass. * In reality, as before stated, the people of China govern themselves;     * The Weekly Dispatch of the 1st. February 1857. thus remarks on the then recents acts of war at Canton.&mdash;

"And now having destroyed the Chinese Government, and brought chaos upon 350 millions of people, will Ministers tell us whether they are prepared to substitute another ruling power for that they have destroyed? Do we propose to annex China, or to partition it among the friends of the "sick man," American, French and English? Are we really aware what we are about when we take from countless millions their recognised rulers and withdraw from this seething mass of human life the organism by which it lived? Have we another administrative dispensation to offer it in the place of that which has been fashioned by the light of the experience of many centuries? Do we know what it is to undertake such a responsibility, ot to throw into utter confusion all the recognised machinery of State power in such a boundless empire?" 