644 Notes of the Month on (June, 
siness of the whole system, the latter charge is rendered almost -ne- 
cessary, for it is computed that the proprietor must starve unless he can 
make upwards of fifteen shillings a day, that sum being actually the 
necessary expense for his horses, driver, coach repairs, and taxes. It is 
the business of a wise legislature to save the pockets of the subject, and 
in this instance, there is a large expenditure through mere mismanage- 
ment, and without good to any one. Let the street stage coach be 
adopted ; and the affair will soon find its level. As many hackney coaches 
will remain as are required by the actual wants of the population, and 
no more. The transit from the different quarters of the capital will be 
accomplished for a fifth of the price. Settled rates will succeed arbitrary 
extortion ; we shall have no more harassing appeals to magistrates against 
ruffian insolence ; the coaches in which the living are conveyed wili not 
be the medium of infection ; rapidity, cheapness, and cleanliness will 
supersede the abuses of the old system ; and London will have a coach 
establishment that will not disgrace her in the eyes of every stranger. 
We are anxious to see the speculation adopted by some man of character 
and public spirit ; for among the projects of public service, there has 
not been one for these fifty years that would be more conducive to the 
comfort of the people. 
‘ 
There is some hope of China after all. It has been for a thousand 
long years the Holland of the East, flat, swampy, full of canals and quiet- — 
ness, women whose lives are spent twisting their distaffs, plaiting their — 
locks, sitting on their chairs, and generating Chinese ; and men with milk 
and water for blood, petticoats for pantaloons, rice for meat, the rattan 
for law, and dollars for religion. They had one merit, however, and it 
was the good sense that kept them from having any intercourse with 
‘Europeans, further than to fleece them of their money. What becomes 
‘of the coin poured into China by the European and American traders, is 
certainly a curious question. Millions of millions of dollars have been 
sent to China in the course of the last hundred years, and not-one dollar 
has ever been sent back ; the law of the Chinese, from the Emperor on 
his throne, to the beggar on the dunghill, being never to let money re- 
turn to an European hand. Yet what they do with all this silver is just 
as difficult to comprehend. They have it not upon their persons, nor on 
their furniture, nor in their ships, nor in any discoverable shape of show, - 
use, or pleasure. They possibly have it buried; and thus the treasure 
returns, like the treasurer, to the clay from which it was taken. The 
‘silver mines of Istria and Potosi have been exhausted to fill the pockets of 
this tea-making nation, and yet China does not seem to be a shilling the 
richer. But its time will come. Ifthe isthmus of Darien shall be cut 
across, all the guards of the yellow empire will not save its shores from 
being visited by tempters in every form of smuggling, with alluring rum, 
and fascinating flannel ;—Manchester cottons will make the lovely for- 
swear their allegiance to chintz and the Emperor ; and gold lace and me- 
rino cloth will subdue the fidelity of the most rigid Mandarin. Thus the 
dollars must come forth. The coffers must give up their dead, and 
Dutch skippers, and Yankee pirates from Massachusetts, and the solid 
and sulky men of the Thames, will retaliate the long plunder of mankind. 
Nay, the-time is actually coming, for the Chinese are beginning to dip into 
revolution; and though we must conceive it to be a very swampy affair, 
yet the attempt has made the old Manchu tremble. 
