REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 173 



In various places our author refers but slightly to the religious 

 differences and persecutions which have stained the pages of China's, 

 as of most other, histories. "Buddhism had varying fortunes," he 

 says (p. 50). On p. 84, we read that "Missionary work, (Christian 

 this time), continued . . . subject to occasional persecution," while 

 on p. 122, we have this statement, "In her religious life China has as 

 a rule been tolerant." We remember no reference to the works of 

 de Groot in this volume, except in the Bibliography, nor is the name 

 mentioned in the index. Had it been, such statements would, perhaps, 

 have been expressed somewhat differently. In making them, however, 

 Mr. Latourette sins in good company. 



Then, again, some objection might be taken to the references to 

 Ancestral Worship. We know of no writer who has done for China 

 in this respect what Lafcadio Hearn did for the corresponding 

 Japanese cult of Shinto, who, so to speak, has got as he did into the 

 very soul of the subject as it presents itself to those who follow it. 



One more small stricture and we have done. On p. 236, there is 

 a statement to the effect that extraterritoriality "has gone so far" in 

 China, that "in the park along the water-front in Shanghai, the chief 

 port in China, there is displayed the sign, "Chinese and dogs not 

 admitted." There was probably never a better example of the mis- 

 chief of a half-truth than this. On the face of it the meaning to be 

 conveyed is that Chinese and dogs are, by the Municipal authorities 

 of Shanghai, classed together. We believe that the concoction of this 

 peculiarly offensive falsehood has to be laid at the door of some 

 anti-foreign scion of Young China, who either hit upon the striking 

 conjunction himself, or had it suggested to him by a Westerner who 

 should have known better. It is, of course, perfectly true that Chinese 

 are excluded from the Public Garden — the "Park" so called. There 

 are two reasons for it. Their exclusion is one of the terms in the 

 original legal agreement which turned a bed of accreted silt into a 

 garden at settlement expense. The other is found in the fact that the 

 Garden is inconveniently crowded if only a very few hundred people 

 attend it, and within a radius of two miles there are a full million of 

 residents, foreign and native. It is also true that dogs are excluded. 

 But the two facts are not offensively juxtaposed, and it is a thousand 

 pities that an honoured name like that of Mr. Latourette should — 

 unwittingly — have made a misleading statement. We feel sure that 

 when the fact is brought to the author's notice he will do his 

 utmost to remedy any mischief his statement has already done, and to 

 take all possible steps to prevent its further spread. (G. L.) 



