398 APPENDIX. NOTES. 



account of the honours paid by the Emperor of China and 

 his court to agriculture : who annually in the beginning 

 of March, after adoring the God of Heaven, and invoking 

 his Blessing on his labour and on that of his whole people, 

 himself, laying aside his imperial robes, holding a plough 

 opens several furrows, and is succeeded by his chief 

 mandarins, who in succession, follow the example of the 

 prince. 1 Some allowance probably must be made for too 

 warm colouring in these statements, as most of them must 

 have been derived from the report of the natives, yet there 

 seems no doubt with respect to their general accuracy. 

 What an example is here set by nations which we are 

 accustomed to consider as far behind ourselves in every 

 art of life : how vast a portion of our own home empire is 

 suffered to lie waste, while all the time hundreds of 

 thousands of our agricultural population are languishing 

 for want of employment, and compelled to live upon a 

 pittance, which, unless they add to it by theft or fraud, is 

 scarcely sufficient to keep body and soul together; and in 

 the mean while the morals of our peasantry are gradually 

 corrupted; they grow daily less industrious; they will 

 often congregate at the beer-shops, and get inveterate 

 habits of intemperance; they lose all respect for their 

 superiors, and the bonds of union betwixt the upper and 

 lower classes are gradually dissolving; and unless some 

 remedy for this fearful evil is soon discovered, who can 

 say what the consequences maybe? When a man once 

 loses his self-esteem, and is degraded from his natural 

 dependence upon himself, under God, and the labour of 

 his hands, for the support of himself and family, being no 

 longer of use to himself or others, he becomes careless of 

 his actions; and being, as it were, rejected by society, 



1 Malte-Brun, 561. 



