The Press. — London, England, 1857-07-18 00:00:00

In a few days the worms have spun themselves out and disappear in their cocoons, and then the process of reeling commences. After an extended tour, and with a valuable and fresh collection of curiosities, it is a hard fate to be robbed of everything. including your note book. Mr. Fortune, just as he got within sight of Shanglme on his return home, was, o►. the last night of anchoring in the river, plundered of everything. But though thieves are dexterous in China, they are more civil and considerate than their European brethren, and invariably return everything they have no immediate occasion for. Mr. Fortune, in the course of an hour or two, received almost (from the hands of the thieves) everything stolen except the dollars After fully acquainting himself with the extent of his loss, and posting his boatmen on the look-out on shore, he lay down to soothe him. self with the philosophic reasoning that there was no help for it, when suddenly footsteps were heard ou the opposite bank : Although we did not expect anything to turn up from that quarter we were all attention, and when we could see two figures halt abreast of our boat our excitement was at a very high pitch. " Loads, louda," cried one of them, addressing the head boatman. My men immediately started up fro n their concealment on the opposite side and demanded what our visitors wanted. " Louth," acid the same voice, with the greatest coolness, and as if he was transacting, a very ordinary piece of business, " come over here and receive the ' white devil's' trunks and clothes." The " white devil's " trunks and clothes, ac count-books, journals, everything iu fact, except a box of dollars, was carefully returned, though all bore marks of having been ex amined A complaint to the Mandarin of the town was made is the morning, and as the Chinese police are unrivalled, in a few hours the( thieves themselves %%ere caught, and a portior of the money returned. Mt. Fortune is sufficiently ungra:,eful to add that he be lieves the Mandarins to have pocketed the balance ! The concluding chapter of Mr. Fortune's volume is devoted to the consideration of our present dispute with Canton. He arrives at the following conclusions : lst. It is useless to attempt to negotiate with a men like Commissioner Yeh : we must have communication with the Court of Pekin. 2nd. The island of Chu/mu is the most suitable point from which we can conduct our nego tiations, both on account of its position, and as it is the most healthy part of China for our troops. 3rd. If the lives and property of foreign merchants and others are to be safe in Canton, the ➢landarins and mob must be taught to treat us with more respect. 4th. The other four ports ought to he respected providing they do not mix themselves up in onr quarrel with the Cantonese. sth. China ought to be opened, and all those foolish restrictions imposed by the last treaty on our trade should be swept away. 6th. In conducting our operations the nature of the climate ought to be carefully considered with a view to preserve the lives of our soldiers and sailors. We confess that we do not exactly see how Chusan, far to the north, should he so eligible for operations against Canton, down in the south ; and Hong Kong can never now be ex changed for either Chusan or Formosa. Be sides, it is not territory but trade that we want with China, and that trade should be in accord ance with the treaties concluded with the Chinese Government China is not " to be opened " like an oyster. We object to the term altogether, and as to all foolish restrictions being swept away, if the Chinese do not require our trade it is no reason, because we want their tea and silk and they don't want our cottons, that they are to be made to take as much of the one as we are glad to get of the other. This is by no =mils a recognised principle of trade. I f we trade with China we must carry on that trade more according to her customs than to our own, though at the same time we do not deny that there are many existing evils in our limite►: inte►course of which it would be highly de sirable Lord ELGIN should obtain the modifi cation or abolition. With respect to the climate, it may be briefly explained that the hottest months of the year are July and August; about Hong hong and Canton the heat comes earlier and lists longer ; and the most unhealthy month is September, " when the northerly winds come "down. causing a sudden depression of tem perature. Natives as. well as foreigners " k suffer much from fever and dysentery. The " excessive summer heat seems to weaken the " constitution, and thus renders it more easily THE PRESS, JULY 18,1857. " affected by the sudden changes of tempera " Lure which occur at this period of the year." The rivers of China are particularly unhealthy at this season, a fact for our commanders in the present expedition. We have but short space to speak of Sir John Davis, who inscribes his two volumes to Viscount Palmerston, " the steady protector " of British interests in China," or of Sir Oscar Oliphant's clever little book. The first work is so well known that it is only requisite to call attention to a new and revised edition as published. Sir Oscar Oliphant, on the other hand, contributes, on good authorities, one of the best•arranged handbooks to the history of China yet published. 1. Shining After Rain. London: Saunders and Otley. 2. Gossip. By H. Morley. London: Chapman and Hall. 3. Our College. Leaves from an Undergraduate's Scribbling-book. London : Earle. 4. 'such is Life. By Doubleyou. London : Eyre. 1. " Shining After Rain " is a simple and touching story, in which unaffected earnestness of purpose and great purity of taste may persuade us to over look serious errors of construction. The plot has often been used before. The heroine, who is bred in luxury, but whose native excellence of character saves her from the supposed evil effects of a life cf ease, after nursing a sick lather and mother, and being coldly treated by a selfish step sister, is left an orphan, destitute of means, owing to the ruin of her father's affairs, with the charge of s younger brother solemnly intrusted to her by her mother on her deathbed. With all these difficulties she grapples resolutely, wins golden opinions from all with whom she comes in contact, and eventually meets and marries the lover whom she had known in her days of prosperity, when he had been separated from her by the machinations of the stepsister. With this style of narrative our readers are, of course, perfectly familiar. In the Fresent instance the de tects of the story consist in the inartistic brevity with which portions of it are hurried through, and also in the fact of the heroine's marriage taking place in the middle of the story. From this point all is plain sailing. Sunshine has set in, and the second volume reads very like an amplification of the summaries which used to be affixed to most fashionable novels some thirty years ago. The merits of " Shining After Rain" consist, as we have said, in its sim plicity and absence of effort. The characters are natural, though the dialogue is a little stilted; and the story, on the whole, leaves a pleasant impression on the memory. 2. " Gossip" is a collection of very clever tales which first appeared in Household Words. They are of course thotouchly impregnated with that mannerism which Mr. Dickens has made fashionable. But they are undeniably amusing, and in most instances contain some useful reflections and facts. Specially good papers are those on medical subjects and on education. The following sketch of a sue• cessful country doctor will amuse our readers : The truth is, that I know •ery little indeed about my profession. As a student, at the opening of three sue cessive sessions, I was warmed a little by my teachers into good designs of study ; but I was so fond of pleasure that I could accomplish vary little indeed. I had a youth's relish for fun, and a youth's disrelish for labour. Not that I was absolutely idle. I attended a very fair number of lectures, slurred over a good many " parts " in the dis secting•room, went round with the physicians and the surgeons to the bedsides ; but I did not fie attention properly on anything or anybody that meant work. I was not by any means the idlest fellow at St. Poultice's, and I do not think that there was any active harm in me. I was quiet enough to be thought well of by the lecturers, and to be considered quite respectable, and better than en aver- age St. Poultice man, even in those days of initiation. It was often thought that I could easily have taken honours in some classes, had I tried for them. When the time came for passing my examinations at the Hall and College, I grew rather nervous ; for I knew myself so well, as to be quite sure that my attainments would not bear a close investigation. My nervousness was tempered by a spring of hope arising from two sources : One was the know. ledge that at the College of Surgeons the examination (which was only on two subjects) would last but for an hour; during which I should be cut into four quarters and divided among four sets of examiners, each of whom would have little civilities to say at starting, and might spend even as much, I trusted, as five minutes apiece over then, in consideration of the fact that they all knew, and would think it polite to ask after, my father. At the Hall, my hope lay in the fact concerning the examining apothecaries. that each of them was supposed to keep seta of examinations, got up by him as an actor gets up parts. Every such line of business was known, and taught publicly to me and to my feliow•pupils during our hospital walking time by certain gentlemen called grinders; who also kept duplicates of all the drug bottles exhibited in trays on tile examination tables. They also in those days—l do not know tow it may be now--even 707 contrived to get from Chelsea•gardens, on the morning of examination, duplicates of all the plants that had been sent down to lilackfriars on the previous evening, to he named by candidates for the apothecaries' licence. The Hall, therefore, could he passed alter grinding for a sew months without any previous study. I ground at second hand ; borrowing the notes and information gathered by a friend who was himself in attendance on a grinder. Yet I passed ; I went through the Surgeons with a flourish. In justice to the Apothecaries I should say that they almost rejected me ; but the scale turned finally in my favour when I was asked the quantities of opium put into the several compounds of the pharmacopoeia that contained that drug. It was one of the stock questions of the place, of which my friend had written down the answer for me on the back of his visitiug•card. 1 had nothing like an idea on the subject; but I knew the list by heart, and had it at that moment near my heart, for it was in my waistcoat pocket. So I passed, and became licensed to practise. Immediately afterwards, I took charge of a large pauper Union. There was no time for study, and there never has been any since ; for I have prospered, and I should have no heart for study had I failed. I look solid and oracular, deal to a judicious extent in jokes ; which are, I find, accepted best and repeated oftenest as mine, when they are not my own. I understand my patients' charac- ters and humours; although I do not understand their maladies so well as I could wish. Of course, I take care not to let that fact be suspected. Profound in tact, I give to no one reason for supposing that there can be anything between consumption and nail•cutting that I do not scientifically understand. lam considered to beespecially able in respect to chest diseases; and I use the stetho scope—by which I am supposed to hear the sounds that betray physical order or disorder—with much grace and gravity. I never yet heard anything more than a general bumping, which I take to be produced by the patient's heart, and a crepitation which I believe to be caused by the hairs of my whiskers rubbing against the wood. Nobody knows that, however. All that is known about me is that 1 am, as before confessed, a respectable practitioner in the world's esteem, grave and a little bald, and that I keep a brougham. Ladies arid gentlemen, I may this very day have written out my fiat for 8i: draughts for one of you. Nevertheless,let no one tremble ; for if it should be so, the chances are nineteen to one that I have ordered you a little harmless effervescent, or a draught coloured with T. Card. Co., which is something innocent and aromatic. I do not prescribe savagely. I live in fear of my own ignorance and do no active harm. Two other very laughable articles are " Country News" and " A Monster Entertainment" 3. " Our College" is a series of tales founded on the familiar adventures of undergraduates. The writer's powers of story-telling are about the average, and the stories themselves are of much the same calibre. The serious element is, however, too pro- minent for a work of this kind, and altogether its contents are better suited for an after-dinner con• versation between old-fellow students, than for the perusal of the general public. 4. " Such is Life " is a sprightly little volume, but we scarcely comprehend the full force of the title, or the designation assumed by the author. Whether it is taken from the game of vingt-un, and is intended to denote his rash and speculative disposition, we cannot tell. Perhaps that is the most probable hypothesis. The stories contain no new ideas, but they are agrteahle reading from the buoyant good spirits and simple good faith that pervade them. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED—JuLy I. Boo Ks. Leonora D'Oreo. Three Vols. G. P. R. James, Esq. Newby The Irish Sketchbook. M. A. Titmarsh. Chapman and Hall .4 Woman's Story. Mrs. S. C. Hall. Three Vo Hurst and Blacken T. Hodson The Howar. Rev. G. R. Gleig. Segue! of the Argument against Immediately Repealing the Laws which Treat the Nuptial Bond as Indissoluble. Rev. John Keble, M.A. J. H. and J. Parker Refigure of Ancient English Poetry, consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, 4.c. Thomas Percy, Lord Bishop of Drornore. Routledge Lands of the Slave and the Free. Captain the lion. H. A. Murray, R.N. Routledge Addresses. His Royal Highness Prince Albert. Bell and Delay A Visit to Schamul. J. W. Parker and Son The Quarterly Rcrietc. Murray Dusir. THE ITALIAN OPERA HOUSES. WHIT is termed the subscription season will terminate tonight (Saturday) at Her Majesty's Theatre with Verdi's Traviata ; but next Mon Jay a series of extra representations will be commence 1, to be continued nightly, an Mozart's Nor,:e di Figaro and lbssini's Cenerentola are mentioie.d as works to be given for tne first time this year. In the ensuing week's programme wi regret to notice the revival of a system which it bad been hoped was exploded, that of performing single ants of. operatic I ~~