Weekly North Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1850-1858, 1858-04-21
THE OCCUPATION OF CANTON.
AFTER THE BLOCKAI

! pie of Hong Kong had been entirely thrown away.
traversed the whole city with my trunk and chow
chow baskets, myself the only escort to my four |
coolies. Along the great east and west thoroughfare
a closed shop was become exception, and the |
only difficulty was to push way through the |
crowd. The people were cutting up their pigs and
their fish, Qhe abundance of immense carp, tench,
and roach in the streets Of the city is wonderfully
and cooking their comestbles in full business-like
security. Idlers playing at Chinese hazard, and
exhibiting their piles of coins upon the board The
curiosity shops in incredible numbers, were spread |
with curious antiques of the newest fashions, and
were victimizing credulous lieutcnants in way |
which Mencus would not have approved. The |
crowds not afraid to manifest curiosity at
the clothes and features of their European guests
and the shopkeepers invite you into their shops with
politeness that proves they have no msgving that
you will exercise any right of conques; except a
conquest by purchase. Yet the spirit of insolence
has departed out of theu Neither in word nor
gesture is there any symptom of hostility or even OF
dislike. l have seen two people frightened very
much by scolding for using the word tanquea,
Ooreign dev;) but believe they used it in all nno
cence, having never heard it called by any other
name. would neglect no precautions, for the neg.
lect of precautions would revive hopes now aban-
doned and the neglect of precautions nearly proved
far from there being any notion of retaking this
city, believe that ten Chinaman within sight of
Canton would dare raise stick in the presence of
British or French soldier or sailor.
The commercial parts of Canton have been much
over-estimated We have believe that there must
be some grain of truth in the bombast and brag of
the Chnaman. Canton is big and populous; that
is ALL In other respects it is very ordinary China
city. Its temples numerous and the Confucian
temple and the temple of Five Hundred Gods
good of their kind, but most of the others mis-
cradle and dapidated The nine -storied pagoda is
in ruinoas a condition that the General the 9TH
er day forbade the attempt climb the fragments of
ifs brOE Mai whose
at the escalade seems to have inspired him with
mania for climbing, had previously risked his neck
in getting some way up. Yet this pagoda is the
great boast and lion of Canton. The Chinese boast
ed Of because foreigners could not get near enough
to see what miserable ruin it is. What can you
think of people who will not afford few dollars
to save their monuments from moulderngs
POLICE ARRANGEMENTS.
found the yamun Of Peh-kwei in a much more
busy state than when l left it. Through the open
doors crowds Of Chinese come and CO. The Chinese
tribunal Of Peh .Kwei and the tribunal of the three
| Commissioners, Colonel Holloway, le Capitaine
Martineau, and MIR. Parker) are aur pet'ts SONS.
Thanks TO the energy of the trumviri, the streets
of Canton as SAT. from European violence as the
streets of Paris are from Chinese exactons. Col.
Holloways court takes all the mixed cases and
finding the other day that Chinaman was in the
wrong, he sent over to Peh-kwei with a state
| ment of the circumstances. The Mandarin was so
charmed with this compliment that he had the poor
wretch bambooed nearly to DEATH The new court
has also established new Canton police. Captain
| Pym is the Colonel Rowan of Canton. He has one
hundred soldiers under him armed with swords and
revolvers, and the French have separate body of
thirty men. Associated with the European police
are an equal number of Tartars Five English and
two French stations have been established in con-
venent parts of the city and suburbs, and the shop
keeping community are likely to obtain under Brit
sh and French rule security they never before
hoped for.
THE ARsENALs.
The three Imperial armories were in high state
of efficiency. The double handed swords i'm.
mense in numbers and terrible to look upon
There rooms full of those fear inspiring shields
which, in some quite modern period of Chinese
history, probably gave to some piratical Greek
the idea of the shield of Minerva. There were ar
rows in thousands, very carefully finished ana pre-
J served in cases, but the Mandarin bows very
rare. Great stores of quilted war jackets filled the
presses, and there were many complete suits n
Chinese armor. The swords and pixies, the gi"ga!s
and matchlocks were innumcrable but the chic
attraction was five brass guns, which were followed
by covetous eyes as they were walked off by the
coolies. In another establishment we found collect
cd all the shot that could be recovered after the las
years bombardment, and also some uneXplodet
shells, which had been fired upon the city tht
2Sth December. There was also great depot of in
fernal manchines in form like dark lantern made
of tin many flags and banners were also carried of
LOSSES OF THE CHINESE.
| have taken some pains to ascertain the loss Snf
the storm. We have all the official returns of tn
first day in possession, and account that hav
seen places the deaths during the whole operation
higher than two hundred Some dstrust the Chi
accounts, but am inclined to put faith in them
Unless you surround Chinese soldiers you never xii
many of them. You never catch them upon an is
land or in an isolated position. They fire very fierce
ly upon you as you are coming up to attack them
but escape by the back door soon you get to-
near. Our escalade was complete surprise upo
them. They fancied were advancing under tn
fire from their walls to attack Fort Cough; the
never expected that we would turn aside and "jum
, wooden legs" over the wall. Howqua's CompradoI
with whom some OF us talked the matter over, de
clares that it is impossible that the numbers kille
' could be greater than is stated. The people, h
says, knew perfectly we'll the line the fire woIl
take, and got out of the way. The troops who wer
obliged to remain on the walls kept very much ur
der cover and great quantities of the missiles misse
the wall and fell into the dich. The dead must
buried outside the city, and the gate onl
open it was easy for any one to calculate ho'
many carried out. 1t says little for the dt
structive power of our warlike engines that so sma
= a loss should have been occasioned by so large a
expenditure of shot and SHE'LL bnt the probabilitie
e that the fact is as the Chinese state it. 1t
Y placed beyond doubt now that the loss of the Ch
= nese during the bombardment in 1856 was not moi
than forty three, and vuite believe in the probabi
. y that the recent list of killed does not exceed tw
q hundred.
:. NORTH CAROLINA MEDICAL SocIEry.-The mint
annual meeting of this society will be held in New
n bern the third Tuesday in May next. See adve
tisement in another column. We have no doul
J., that the meeting will be fu The facilities f
n getting to Newbern are now as good as could
IS desired, the Atlantic Railroad having been compl
=, ted to Goldsboro 1t is, no doubt, pleasure,