CANTON, 29th June, 1855. DEAR SIR,-In respect to the question of the population of China, I have nothing new of any general application to the subject. It would be a good service to the statistics of the race, for Hienfung to make out a general census, as his grandfather did, now forty-three years after the last.

The visits made to villages and towns in this prefecture since the breaking out of disturbances last June, have strengthened rather than diminished one's faith in the accuracy of the census. Large towns, like Shihlung, Kiúkiáng, Kinchuh, Fuhshán, Sintsiun, and others, have been found to contain even larger numbers than the representations of the Chinese had led one to believe. Fuhshán occupies even more ground than Canton, rather than less; and several observers agreed in estimating the portion which was burned last autumn as large as the entire western suburbs of Canton. Sintsiun is estimated at half-a-million, though data are wanted to confirm this figure. You will see a list of villages enumerated by Mr Bonney, in the Anglo-Chinese Calendars for 1852 and 1853,' all of which were situated within a radius of two miles of Whampoa, or on Fa-té Island, west of Macao Passage. Few spots in the world maintain a denser population than the delta of Pearl River, nearly

all of which is included in the prefecture of Kwangshan, which is about one-ninth of the whole province. Its density of population, doubtless, is greater than any other equal area in the whole province; for if the whole contained as niany, the entire amount could hardly be less than thirty millions, instead of nineteen millions, as now reckoned.

The Registrar-General must needs be content with an approximate estimate, from the nature of the case, our inability to make minute personal examination, and the lapse of time since the last general census. Huc, I see, estimates the combined population of Wúcháng, Hányang, and Hankau in Húpeh, at the high figure of eight millions, if I remember aright, for I have not the book to refer to. This is more than I have seen any one else reckon it. He gives one the impression of a highly-cultivated and well-peopled region in Eastern Sz'chuen, too, and through the valley of the Yangtsz' in Húpeh. I have no special data to add to these general remarks on this subject; but if I could put as much credence in Chinese historical and political statements as I do in their statistical, I should think much more of their value. It is a melancholy reflection to think that so vast a portion of our race is almost entirely ignorant of God and his truth. Most truly yours, S. W. WILLIAMS.

Thorndale, or the Conflict of Opinions. By William Smith, Author of Athelwold, a Drama,' 'A Discourse on Ethics,' &c. Crown 8vo, 608 pp. London and Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.

THE MIRAGE.

OFTEN have I, when looking up into the sky, seen a brilliant white cloud extend itself across the blue ether in the exact model of an angel's wing-one wing, never the angel complete. Such have been my visions of the Future Society. Both wings would never come fairly out; no complete angel would ever manifest itself.

Some months after this, behold me plodding my solitary way, 'melancholy

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slow,' through the streets of the city of Manchester. I had paused midway here on my route to London, to satisfy a curiosity I felt to see those factories which I so often heard talked of. To come from the fresh mountain air to such a place, is not a mode of approach the most conciliating. Here men live buried in bricks-buried above-ground in a sort of open catacomb: the dwellings of the workmen deserve no better name. I passed through interminable rows of brick hovels, foul and noisy, in which I am sure I should have sighed for the peace of the catacomb. Not a leaf of a tree visible; no sky, only smoke; no running water but what runs with filth. Men have built thus for their habitation!-a race of breathing, seeing, reasoning creatures, have built

with me upon this 'Bridge of Sighs,' he might think that it was also in the weaving that the cotton goods got a certain infection from misery and injustice. But there is no Arcadia for us-none at least to be reached by going back. We must push forward. We cannot simplify society; we must master its complexities. Cotton-growing and cotton-spinning will both be one day conducted in a better fashion. The slave will rise to the position of the paid labourer, and the paid labourer may be rising to a quite new position. We must push forward-forward through the din and smoke of this very Manchester. Here, at all events, men are learning to combine, and different classes are also learning to combine for mutual assistance. Amidst all the heat, and toil, and tribulation of this scene, a welding process is being carried on, that may have many good results. From all I understand, there is no town in England which manifests so enlightened a public spirit as this of Manchester. There is no going back. We must transform this Manchester itself, bit by bit, stone by stone, man by man, into a pleasant city, and a city of the just. Science must teach us to consume this smoke; these dwelling-houses must be made healthful and cheerful. Improved processes of manufacturing shall disconnect our industry from the filth which poisons the river, as well as that which infects the air. Our manufacturing era' is an age of apprenticeship. I always return to this indisputable truth: it is by doing our best under the existing state of things that we shall work out a better. It is by improving our own present system that we create the nobler system that is to follow.

I am in London. Have others felt the same contrarieties as I have done? If, at one time, the aspect of a great city has excited glorious anticipations of the future, from reflection on the sciences and arts that are cultivated therein, at other times it has called up terrible apprehensions; and I have felt nothing but alarm, lest whatever of civilisation has been already accomplished should be swept away in some mad and desperate revolution.

Look down that long street-every house on both sides of it is a spacious mansion, replete with all desirable comforts the abode of wealth and refinement, of active intelligent men, of beautiful and cultivated women. And look

again at those groups of haggard mortals, with envy, hatred, and malice at their hearts; they stand or they saunter under those windows, behind which sit unseen your gentle and your wise. That thin glass alone interposes. What if this haggard multitude should in its frenzy resolve to enter-where it can enter only to destroy} For me, I sometimes draw my breath in fear and trembling, as if in an agony of suspense, when I think what brute power might do, if stung into anger and desperation. 'Come out-come down to us!' What if an insensate crowd should cry out thus? We cannot rise to you— come down to us!'

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If any pensive gentleman, in quest of a 'new sensation'-whom not even the last novel will appease-should apply to me, I think I could help him to a suggestion. Let him throw over his shoulders an old cloak, and put some weatherbeaten cap upon his head, and seat himself, as I once did, amidst the rabble and the riff-raff of one of the crowded streets of London. There, level with the pavement, let him contemplate society from this new point of view. Looking up from this lowly position, the old familiar structure, if I mistake not, will wear a singularly novel aspect to him. He will also find himself surrounded (not, thank Heaven! with the men who form the foundation of society, but) with an obscene race, that burrow into the foundations deep and mischievously enough.

I once quite undesignedly found myself in such a position. I had returned to London from a long sojourn in the country, and had lost much of that awe and respect for conventional proprieties which distinguishes every reputable citizen. In the fields where I had been in the habit of walking, some old horse, projecting its head over the gate, was the severest critic of my costume and demeanour I was likely to meet. If I was tired, I sat down on the first convenient resting-place. This liberty-unheard of in the respectable citizen-I took even in the streets of London. Being wearied, I sat down on the steps of a church.

I sat down under the portico of a church in Regent Street-a place which, at that time, was a good deal infested by loiterers of all descriptions. I found myself amongst beggars, itinerant venders of knives and slippers, women with large pieces of wash-leather displayed for sale, Italian boys with their images and the

like. It was November; I had on a travelling-cloak and cap; I was probably taken for a foreigner. With our populace a foreigner is either a prince or a beggar; it was plain I was not the prince; no one took any heed of me.

Out there in the street before me rolled by carriage after carriage-elegant equipages, as they are called. How very palpable it became to me, as I now sat here on the pavement, that those who looked out of carriage-windows regarded us as a quite different race of beings, as quite out of the pale of humanity. Evidently the dogs in the street, the lamp posts on either side of the way, or the heaps of mud scraped up for the scavenger's cart, were just as likely to occupy their thoughts as the human group to which I then belonged. The lady and gentleman who walked past us, with stately or with careless step, were equally indifferent. Unconscious they of our presence, unless as obstacles in the path, to be especially avoided. We were at their feet, but far beyond their vision! So thought I-this it is to sit on the lowest round of the ladder. It is well to try the place. How very near the dirt we are! What if this were verily my position in society? I imagined for the moment that it was, and identified myself with these children of the streets.

I learned something from my new position, and the novel society around me. I felt that the passionless neglect of our superiors was returned by us with something far more energetic. You simply pass us by; you have no hostility, nor dream of exciting it; you think no harm, you would not hurt us-no, nor would you hurt the crawling toad upon your path; you avoid us both, and for the very same reason the contact would be disagreeable. Simply you do not love us— this is the extent of your feeling; but ours? I detected that we return neglect-with hate!

I heard the beggars whine out their pious supplications, as in times past they had often done to myself; but from my new position I heard the aside also of these miserable actors. I heard the brutal curse that followed on the pious supplication when it had not succeeded, and the triumphant jest, somewhat more carefully expressed, when the disgusting hypocrisy had prospered. How the eye spoke of plunder, as it caught the glitter of any ornament on the passers-by! how

of sullen hate, as it followed the bold and confident step of the English gentleman!

One thing I noticed (and I have noticed it on other occasions), which at first appears very inexplicable. Criticism on dress or equipage one expects in the windows of a club-room. But to find it here!

amongst these!-and of the most intolerant description! Any singularity of costume is punished, amongst us of the streets, with the most unsparing ridicule. Many of us, who never rode at all except in a dung-cart, greet a sorry equipage with jeers of derision. How is this? Is our taste so very refined, or have we really so keen a sense of the ridiculous? I apprehend that it is nothing more than an overflowing of the bile-a demonstration of our spite. Any excuse for a brutal jest is greedily seized upon. Our most absurd laughter is in fact a poor species of retaliation.

A coarse fellow stands near me. A gentleman and his dog passes. The dog thinks proper to assail the man-does not bite, but barks, as if he was very much disposed to do so. The gentleman calls off his dog-chides and reproves the animal-but, as the manner of the English gentleman is, he does not cast a look, a glance, apologetic or otherwise, upon the man! All passes as a breach of discipline on the part of the dog. But the man followed-not the dog, but his master-followed with a scowl that made my blood run cold. 'Our turn may come one day,' he muttered between his teeth, and then !'-some horrible imprecation was lost in the jostle and turmoil of the street.

Without a question, we of the parement, if we had our will, would stop those smooth-rolling chariots, with their liveried attendants (how we hate those clean and well-fed lackeys!)-would open the carriage-door, and bid the riders come down to us!-come down to sharegood Heaven, what?—our ruffianage, our garbage, the general scramble, the general filth.

'War to the knife rather!' they of the chariots would exclaim-'war to the death rather than this!'-and with good reason. Meanwhile they ride there softly, thinking no evil-thinking very little of anything at all.

The fashionable crowd thickens; there are more carriages, more pedestrians, more gazers at the shops and at each