Catholic Intolerance. — Sedan- Chair Travelling. 483 



takeable adjuncts of true education and enlightenment. At all 

 events, we judged as much from a remark made by the bro- 

 ther who accompanied us round the building, wlio spoke some 

 words in Chinese to tlie gaping crowd of long-tailed scholars, 

 who kept pressing upon us, and then turning to us, observed 

 in French, — " I have informed our puj)ils that our present 

 guests are Roman Catholics, and therefore true Christians, 

 because we occasionally have English visitors at the Mission, 

 and they are heretics." Apparently the intolerant padre was 

 reckoning without his host, for there were several Protestants 

 among the party ! 



Throughout the province of Kaing-su there are at pre- 

 sent 80,000 Chinese Catholics, that is to say, who profess 

 Catholicism, though having but a very superficial idea of its 

 spirit and its reality. 



In returning to our boat we availed ourselves of the mode 

 of conveyance in most common use in China, the sedan-chair, 

 or couch. The ordinary sedan-chair differs little in exterior 

 form and interior arrangement from those still occasionally 

 used in some of the out-of-the-way, old-fashioned towns, both 

 of Germany and England. Owing to the extreme cheapness of 

 labour, the least well-to-do classes of Chinese are able to avail 

 themselves of these convenient conveyances, the use of which is 

 doubly agreeable in such a hot climate. Indeed, long journeys 

 are very frequently made by this mode of transport. As a 

 rule, the sedan-bearers get over from twenty to twenty-five 

 miles per diem, charging for that distance one dollar, in 



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