Hotels. — Rate of living. — Food. 429 



figure placed at the bottom of the apartment, a large stage is 

 erected, on which Chinese dramas are represented for their 

 entertainment from 10 o'clock in the mornin": till nierhtfall. 



In one part of the immense pile of buildings there are also 

 provided dwellings for such Chinese merchants as visit Shang- 

 hai from the interior of the kingdom, and have neither friends 

 nor relatives in the city with whom they can take up their 

 residence, for public taverns are in China only frequented by 

 tlie very lowest classes. We entered one of these Chinese 

 hotels, which we had come upon during our ramble, and in- 

 spected the eating-rooms and bed-rooms, which are usually 

 situated on the first floor. The usual charge is from 100 to 

 140 cash a day for board (4c?. to 6c?.), and from 20 to 40 cash 

 for lodging {\d. to 2d.). The gloomy, filtliy, cavernous aspect 

 of each room makes even a moment's stay intolerable. The 

 victuals supplied consist chiefly of rice, vegetables, and fish. 

 In the interior, board and lodging in these taverns is very 

 much cheaper, and the well-known and highly meritorious 

 English missionary Dr. Medhurst, who, in 1845, traversed, 

 in the dress of a Chinese, a large portion of the silk and tea 



a favourite deity with the Chinese, as it frequently adorns their Uttle domestic altars, 

 and is especially reverenced by the women who are desirous of the honours of ma- 

 ternity. The striking similarity between this exhibition and that of the Holy Virgin, 

 as we see her represented in Catholic Churches, with the infant Jesus in her arms, 

 must involuntarily suggest the idea that there has been an infusion of Catholicism 

 intermingled here with the rites of Buddha. If the resemblance between the two is 

 not accidental, it may readily be assumed that the same thing has occurred here as in 

 the case of certain Christian legends, which the traveller encounters among various 

 races, on whom the beams of Christian civilization have never been shed. 



