The Press.
London, England, 1857-06-06 00:00:00

probation of the spirit of the changes made in
1832, the right hon. gentleman proceeded :
" I have always loosed, not I believe without
"reason, to the remedial agency which would be
" exercised on some of the arrangements that
" might have been very factiously brought
" about by the good sense and common feeling of
" Englishmen, influences which would in the
"long run tend to alleviate some of the in-
" justice that marked the settlement of 1832."
A measure such as Mr. Harris advocates
would be too " newfangled " to commend it-
self to " the good sense and common feeling "
alluded to by Mr. Disraeli. It is true that
we live in an ago when eclecticism, or an
artificial mixture of something of everything,
has exercised an unwholesome influence on
our public mind, which, in its natural charac
teristics, prefers the solid to the showy, and
distrusts speculative refinements. A more
practical method than Mr. Harris proposes
should be required to preserve the Conserva-
tive interest. The crudeness of his scheme
can be shown at a glance :

By a disfranchisement of a number of the smaller
boroughs which represent no particular interest, a suffi-
cient reduction might be made in the House of Commons
to admit of the enfranchisement of the learned, profes-
sional, and commercial bodies alluded to, and of the
increase of certain of the town and of the county members,
if necessary. The members of the house might, per-
haps, be advantageously limited to 600, allowing WM to
England, where the greater part of the corporate bodies
who would send members exist, 150 to Scotland, and 100
to Ireland.

The Irish Protestants and Romanists would
never submit to the degradation of Scotland
having fifty more members than Ireland, and
Mr. Harris overlooks the serious fact that the
Conservatives of England have suffered
severely since the Reform Bill from the one
sided character of the Scotch representation.
The importance of the subject, and the
ability shown in some parts of this philoso-
phical treatise, have thus induced us to criti-
cise this production.

A Residence amity the Chinese : Inland, on the
Coast, and at Sea. By Robert Fortune.
London : Murray.
China and its Inhabitants. By Sir John Davis.
New Edition. Two Vols. London :
Murray.
China. A Popular History. By Sir Oscar
Oliphant. London : Blackwoods.
THE probable deluge of works upon " Cbina
and the Chinese " is heralded by Mr. Fortune's
Travels, by a new edition of Sir John Davis'
well-known work, and by a pleasant, chatty,
half-a-crown volume by Sir Oscar Oliphant.
Mr. Fortune is well known to the pub-
lic as the clever author of " Three Years'
Wanderings in China," as well as of " A Visit
to the Tea Countries of China and the Hima-
laya ;" and the present volume may be ac-
cepted as a continuation of its predecessors,
for it was in 1852 that, for the second
time, Mr. Fortune was despatched by the
East India Company to China to collect
tea plants and procure teamakers for the ex-
perimental tea-farms in India ; and on this
occasion his investigations led him not only
over the tea districts of Chekiang, but to reside
for some time in the heart of the great silk
dihtrict, upon which some very interesting
chapters are given But the great feature
of Mr. Fortune's book lies in his personal
vindication of the Chinese from the charge
of being " barbarians." Singularly enough,
it is a national peculiarity of ours to under-
estimate or despise all other nations on earth ;
and as indolent or ignorant persons are prone
to generalise, this piece of vulgar electioneering
claptrap being accepted on high authority,
John Chinaman was unhesitatingly set down
as a very " bloodthirsty barbarian." We all
know that the Chinese as a nation are jealous,
selfish, and conceited, yet a nation is to some
extent only the reftexof the ruling power; and
although the Chinese of the towns under the
pressure of the local Tartar Government may
exhibit a greathatred of foreigners, yet the edu-
cated classes in the country display towards
strangers the greatest hospitality and goodwill.
But for us tojudge a nation of four hundred mil-
lions by the ordinary conduct towards "peculiar
strangers" of the villszions rabble et a sea•