Ch. xii. China and Japan. 215 



to the most abject state of poverty. Sir George 

 Staunton observes, that the price of labour is ge- 

 nerally found to bear as small a proportion every 

 where to the rate demanded for provisions, as the 

 common people can suffer; and that, notwith- 

 standing the advantage of living together in large 

 families, like soldiers in a mess, and the exercise 

 of the greatest economy in the management of 

 these messes, they are reduced to the use of vege- 

 table food, with a very rare and scanty relish of 

 any animal substance.* 



Duhalde, after describing the painful industry 



of the Chinese, and the shifts and contrivances 



unknown in other countries, to which they have 



recourse in order to gain a subsistence, says, 



" Yet it must be owned, that, notwithstanding the 



" great sobriety and industry of the inhabitants 



" of China, the prodigious number of them occa- 



" sions a great deal of misery. There are some 



" so poor that, being unable to supply their chil- 



" dren with common necessaries, they expose 



" them in the streets.'' **** " In the great cities, 



■" such as Pekin and Canton, this shocking sight 



" is very common. "t 



The Jesuit Premare, writing to a friend of the 

 same society, says, " I will tell you a fact, which 

 " may appear to be a paradox,^ but is neverthe- 

 " less strictly true. It is, that the richest and 



* Embassy to China, Staunton, vol. ii. p. 15G. 



f Duhalde's China, vol. i. p. 277. 



X Lcllrcs Edif. ct Cuiiouses, torn. xvi. p. 394. 



