Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/210

202 conditions in parts of China uninfluenced by foreign presence, and so far the civilization of the interior is a real thing. That the Chinaman allows his handsome buildings to fall into disrepair; that his narrow city streets reek with foul odors; that the pig has equal rights with the owner of the pretty farm-house; and that the epicure takes delight at his dinner in sharks' fins instead of terrapin—these are merely differences in details; and if they are faults, as we consider them to be, they will naturally be corrected as soon as the Chinaman, with his quick wit, perceives his errors, when the opportunity to study Occidental standards comes to him.

Chang-sha, the capital of Hu-nan, is one of the most interesting cities in the whole Empire, as marking the very highest development of Chinese exclusiveness and dividing with Lhassa in Tibet the boast of shutting its gates tightly in the face of foreign contamination. In a previous chapter an account was given of how the present conservative governor had closed the schools organized by his more liberal predecessor, and had tried to root up the budding movement toward reform and progress. But he made one interesting and highly suggestive omission in allowing the electric-light plant to continue. When, at the end of our first day at Chang-sha, as I stood on my boat watching the city wall, the picturesque roofs, the junks on the shore and the surging crowd slowly lose their distinctness in the twilight, and then saw them suddenly brought into view again by the glare of the bright electric arcs as the current was turned on to light the narrow streets, I smiled as I realized the utter impossibility of stopping the onward march of nineteenth century progress, and that the Chinese themselves, even at the very heart-center of anti-foreignism, are ready to turn from the old to the new.

In the shop-windows at Chang-sha there are displayed for sale articles with American, English, French, German, Japanese and other brands. One shop, I noticed, displayed a good assortment of American canned fruits and vegetables. This is the condition of affairs, not in Shanghai or Amoy, open ports, but in the most exclusively Chinese section in the whole Empire. That the Chinaman will buy, that he will adopt foreign ways, there is no question; and he is just as ready to make the greater changes in his life that must result from the introduction of railways as to buy a few more pieces of cotton or a few more tons of steel.

But in order to buy more the Chinaman must be able to sell more; for no matter what his inclination may be, unless he has something to give in return, he cannot trade. The exports from China have been expanding gradually, and in step with the imports. In 1888 they were 92,401,06? tails: had increased to 116,632,311 taels in 1893, and had further advanced to 195,784,332 taels in 1899. The two great items