The Express.
London, England, 1858-02-27 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27.

Tar tale of the capture of Canton reads tamely
after the more stirring tales of the siege of Sebum-
topol, the capture of Delhi, and the leaguer of
Lucknow. It is not that the skill and valour of the
assailants is less, or that the mustering of their host
for the fray is lees imposing. It is that the object
accomplished ia 03 utterly disproportioned to the pre-
paratory array. The Chinese aredeticicat neither in
personal strength nor in disregard of danger; but
their weapons compared with ooze are as children's
pop-guns; they are utterly destitute of any know-
ledge of war u an art ; and they appear even to be
uninspired with military ardour. Our forces were ex-
posed to a sharp peppering while in the act of waling ;
but as soon as they had fairly gained a footing on
the crest of the wall all effectual resistance was at
an end. An English street-mob on • newly Mao-
adamiaed road would have shown better fight against
soldiers, to say nothing of Parisian Imestriere in
barricaded streets. There is a sense of disappoint-
ment when we find the solemn overture of a night's
shell and rocket practice ham been a prelude to no-
thing more than a sham fight, not much more imposing
than might be got up within the walls of a minor
theatre. The deaths of the brave and experienced
officers who fell arc felt with double poignancy—as
if they had lost their lir' by some accident in I
firing a salute.

The most ludicrous feature of the whole affair is
the stolid indifference of the Cantonese population.
Though the Chinese troops had been driven from
the wall, and apparently from the eity ; though
shells and rockets had rained upon them hoeseantly
foe a live-long night ; though their roofs were pene-
trated in all directions, or their houses burnt ;
though their governors had been taken prisoners and
reinstalled as agents of the victors ; still after, and
even during these events, the citizens never inter-
mitted their ordinary occupations. As intent upon
their daily routine as the Romans and Carthagi-
nians in their work of reciprocal slaughter at
Thrasymene, a revolution passed unnoticed in the
one case, as "an earthquake rolled nuheededly
"away " in the other. Nor is this seeming lack of
the power of perceiving or being moved by
anything out of their own world of domestic or
industrial pursuits, characteristic of the citizens of
Canton only. In the narratives of the affair at Fat-
ahem we read of husbandmen imperturbably tilling
their fields while the balls were falling thick around
them. The bulk of the population all over the great
Delta on the extreme verge of which Canton is
situated would appear to think that war and go-
vernment are matters which no more affect their in-
terests directly than " the loves of the angels." They
scarcely look up from their ledgers or furrows to see
how the battle goes, or ask whether Yee or the Faa
%tool are rulers.

This, one should think, must go far to convince
those who imagine that they can teach the Chinese
the great moral duty of being sociable like other
people by giving them a drubbing, how hopeless is
the task they have taken in hand. It need not be
denied that during the lapse of three centuries and a
half Europeans have accomplished little or nothing
in the way of insinuating themselves into the fami-
liar friendship of the Chinese. After three centu-
ries and a hall of intercourse, they still keep us at
arm's length. The most patient submission to their
ceremonial exclusiveness has not in the least thawed
their icy reserve. All this is no doubt very pro-
voking. The French and English have at lest
undertaken to thrash the Chinese into sociability, and'
the Americans, Russians, and all other peoples of the
European race, pat their champions on the hack and
encourage them to go on. Well; we have drubbed
them ; we have taken Canton, and can keep it as
long as we please; and how much the nearer are we
to the end we have in view ? JOHN CIIINAYAN re-
mains as insensible to oar bastinadoing as to oar
bowing. He ignores the presence of a conquering force
in the heart of Canton with the same quiet
pertinacity with which he ignored the possum
of a few unarmed traders in the suburbs.
The Governor and General eondeseend to enter
anew upon the discharge of their functions at the
request of Lord ELGIN and Baron LE GROS, but they
stickle, on the point of etiquette, at the interview, as
much as ever they did ; and the citizens bay and
sell, and eat and drink, and resort to the Yemen
with their law or police cases, or to pay their taxes.
or to make arrangements with the officers of the
Customs, just as if the French and English soldiers
and sailors were not there. Nobody puts himself
in the least out of his way on account of the unaccus-
tomed guests. The shopkeepers with whom the Euro-
peans deal profit by the connexion, and the rest of the
citizens are put to no inconvenience. The Man-
darins look on with the same placid sense of their
immeasurable superiority to the Fan Kicei which
they have always felt. The invaders may remain as
long as they please, or they may go to-morrow—it
is all one to the worthy Cantonese. As fee the
offset of the capture of Canton on the rest of the
Empire, the Court will quietly ignore it, and set one
Chinese in a hundred thousand will ever hear of it.
The Government at Pekin will not relinquish
its rooted aversion to receive ambassadors
from foreign powers as from equals, and to
eater into alliances on a footing of equality,
merely because a remote seaport has been seized by