283 COFFEE. 



great mercliants who formerly controlled tliis trade so absolutely 

 that it was almost a monopoly, have been steadily losing money 

 for a term of years, and speak anything but encouragingly of the 

 future. Some of the great buildings along the Bund are unten- 

 anted, and many of them are for sale. It is claimed by some that 

 ocean cables and steam communication have ruined the China 

 trade. Doubtless it has spoiled the monopoly which the few once 

 enjoyed, but at the same time it has opened the trade to many 

 who do not despise the closer margins that now prevail every- 

 where in the commercial world. It is an easy life that residents 

 here have been living, and it is possible that in the future a closer 

 competition for trade may make greater exertions necessary. To 

 one who has been nsed to the bustling, business life of E'ew York, 

 it seems as if there were several men here employed to do one 

 man's work. Every clerk has his assistant in the shape of a Chi- 

 naman, or " boy," as he is called here, to nm at his beck and 

 call, to pull a punkah (a large fan) over him to create a breeze 

 when it is warm, and even to perform the personal services of a 

 valet. The Anglo-Saxon race loves to take its ease, and it soon 

 becomes a sort of second nature to accept and even demand these 

 little "conveniences." Chinese barbers come to your room to 

 shave you, and a resident here informed me that his "boy" al- 

 ways shaved him before he got up in the morning, and that, if he 

 did it so unskilfully as to wake him up, he used to kick him. All 

 the waiters and coolies here are called " boys," no matter how old 

 they may be. It sounds strangely to American ears to hear this, 

 but at our hotel the other day, I heard a little toddler of not more 

 than four or five years shouting "boy" quite lustily, to attract the 

 attention of a hotel waiter old enough to be his grandfather, and 

 he afterward ordered him about as peremptorily as he would a 

 pet dog or kitten. 



To-day we visited the native city. It is simply a conglomera- 

 tion of little wooden structures, huddled together, apparently 

 without plan or design. The streets are simply narrow lanes, 

 not wide enough for any wheeled vehicles, and reeking with dirt 

 and smells in every direction. It is suri'Oimded by a high brick 

 wall, and intersected here and there with small canals, which, ap- 

 parently, are the only means of carrying off the refuse of the city. 



