m 
REMITTANCES BY CHINESE IMMIGRANTS*. 
being dependent on many circumstances, such as the general state of 
trade, or the particular fortune of individuals. In some years the 
aggregate amount reaches as high perhaps as 70,000 Spanish 
dollars, while in other years it may fall as low as 30 or 40,000 
dollars. In the season which has just ended, the remittances were 
very small in amount, owing, in the case of the merchants and trad¬ 
ers, to the unprofitable state of trade for some time past, and, in the 
ease of the agricultural coolies, to the inadequate price which gambier 
lias for many months commanded, and which has seriously affected 
their wages, the amount of which is dependent on the price of the 
product. 
Many of these coolies, being unable to write, are obliged to have 
recourse either to an acquaintance : if they are so fortunate as to 
possess one having a tincture of letters: or to one of the public 
letter-writers whose stalls, like those of similar professors in many 
cities of Continental Europe, are to be found in the streets, with 
their owners ready to be the instruments of communication for those 
who cannot write themselves. The Chinese letter-writer 1 s stall is 
a very simple affair; consisting in general of a small rude table, a 
little bundle of paper, a brush, some China ink, and a stool on which 
the operator sits.* These stalls arc usually placed at the side of the 
street, and sometimes in the public verandahs; while, in the outskirts 
of the town, they may he found established under trees, or in the 
shadow of walls. The person who wishes to send the letter stands 
or squats himself upon his hams beside the writer, and states what he 
wants to have written, and the letter being finished is delivered to him, 
while he rewards the writer with 3 to 6 cents, according to circum¬ 
stances-. On the occasion of the departure of two or three large Junks, 
* A Chinese has furnished us with a rude sketch of one of these stalls 
drawn and lithographed by himself, which, although without artistical pre¬ 
tensions, ail'd abounding in the usual defects of the Chinese pencil, s suffi¬ 
ciently faithful and characteristic. As example will much better convey a 
correct idea of the state of art amongst the people around us, than mere 
description, we shall allow them, to a certain extent, to he their own illus¬ 
trators. From the same desire to exhibit our Eastern fellow-tow nsmen as 
they really are, to our readers in England, we shall, occasionally, in giving 
Specimens of their books, introduce fac similes of the figures with which they 
arc embellished. Rude as the productions of native art generally are, and 
particularly reckless of perspective and proportion, we are often surprised 
bv (he fidelity and vigour with which the character ot the subject has been 
caught, and by a broad drollery or even humour which we should still less 
have expected. 
