LANGUAGK-PEOPLE-MONEY 3 



youngest of the dialects, and it was strange 

 that it sliould be the more national. He 

 assented with the remark, that it was an- 

 other of China's peculiarities, and that the 

 longer I lived in China the more I would 

 see of them. I inferred that the judge was 

 not fully convinced that China had a nation- 

 al language, but seemed persuaded that it 

 was not strictly accurate to say that there 

 were several dialects. He instanced the 

 fact : that the language of one of the pro- 

 vinces was as old as three thousand years, 

 and although it had served as the medium 

 of business and communication for so long 

 a time between the inhabitants it was not 

 spoken or understood outside of that par- 

 ticular province. But whether there be a 

 national languao^e or manv dialects, or 

 whether there be different languages, schol- 

 ars have no more agreed than they have as 

 to the origin of the Chinese, and after read- 

 ing the learned researches on both subjects 

 there is a feeling that the true sources have 

 not been discovered. 



There is, however, a useful view of the 

 subjects which is of interest to the shooter 

 and more so to the business man, for unless 

 one is familiar, or has an interpreter who 



