INDEX. THE PERFORMANCES AT A CHINESE THEATRE ... THE CITY OF SHANGHAI: ITS STREETS, TEMPLES, PRISONS, AND GARDENS INTRODUCTION. HESE "Sketches," hasty limnings in printer's ink, have for the most part appeared at irregular intervals in the Shanghai Mercury, and in some cases have already been published in book form. They are now republished in extenso, in the hope that they may prove of some utility, or offer some amusement to that section of the great English-speaking public who take an interest in the peoples and manners of the Far East. They do not pretend to enter into abstruse questions of polity or science, but take up the more familiar matters of daily life, as they present themselves in the microcosm known as Shanghai. It may be said that the Chinaman is many-sided: the Chinese Question decidedly is,-but on that we do not propose to enter. However, the individual, if not many-sided,for it is out of order to speak of sides in a figure whose complaisant roundness takes the place of European angularity,-to be understood, requires to be painted from many points of view. From one of them, that of the ordinary resident in one of the Treaty Ports, the present "Sketches" are taken. Withal, it is a by no means easy matter for the average European to evolve from his inner consciousness the native of the Middle Kingdom, as the Chinaman loves to call his home. The Willow Pattern is still the predominant image in our imaginations. Faces like the moon, moustaches drawn out and drooping at the ends, eyes set at strange angles with the horizon, long tails, and hats shaped like pagodas are, of course, his predominant features. His surroundings are equally quaint a pagoda or two, impossible bridges spanning innumerable waterways, trees with blue fruit hanging in huge clusters; fair ladies, with long fantastic skirts gathered in huge folds about their feet and ankles, and bare-headed urchins fishing in ponds amidst lotus-flowers, and with one |