SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. 21 



I 



ORDINARY MEETING. 



A meeting of the Society was held in the Anatomy Theatre, on Monday, 

 14th November, 1911, when Mr. C. W. Somerville, M.B., Ch.B., D.P.H., of the 

 Wuchang-Hankow Mission of the London Missionary Society, delivered a 

 lecture, profusely illustrated by lantern, on the people of Central China. 



Mr. W. P. Baxter, President of the Society, who was in the chair, referred 

 to Dr. Somerville's intimate knowledge of the people, acquired during many 

 years' experience in connection with a large and successful medical mission. 



At the outset the lecturer made a few interesting comments upon the 

 revolutionary movement arising in China. It was not wholly unexpected by 

 the missionaries and others who knew China well. The expression of the new 

 spirit of genuine love of country and national ambition in revolt, not against 

 law and order, but against a system of government under which China could 

 never take its place among the nations, the movement under men like its 

 present leaders may be the beginning of a new era of social and commercial 

 progress. 



In the course of a few remarks on the fighting at present going on around 

 Hankow, Dr. Somerville incidentally remarked that his sympathies here must 

 be somewhat divided, as both Tuan-shih-kai and the revolutionary com. 

 mander were warm supporters of his medical work. 



Passing to the people themselves, in addition to the typical Chinaman, 

 there was another marked type, individuals of which were not infrequently 

 encountered. T-hese resembled very strong the N. American Indian in their 

 cast of feature ; handsome large-featured men with almost aquiline noses, 

 big well-cut lips, and without the obliquity of the rictus oculi of their 

 neighbours. This was interesting in the light of the theory of the peopling of 

 N. America by emigration from East Asia by what is now Behring Straits and 

 the Aleutian Islands. 



