ed to the full by
appetites not always satisfied by the culinary achievements of a
Delmonico.

Travelers insist that Canton is more essentially Chinese in an
educational sense than any other city in China. Public speech in Hong
Kong reflects the control of Britain, and in Shanghai popular opinion is
held to be tainted with German or British opinion. At Pekin the game of
diplomacy is played too consummately to allow an expressed utterance to
have any national significance, for the capital is looked upon as a city
eddying with cross currents and rival influences. Consequently, the
pulse of the great Flowery Kingdom, with its more than four hundred
million people, can best be taken at Canton, for the native press and
native scholars there say frankly what they believe.

Cantonese opinion is potential because the capital city of the great
Kwang-tung province is recognized as the center of national learning,
where scholarship is prized above riches. No Canton youth who aims at
the first social order thinks of setting himself to make money; to enter
the service of the government is his object, and to achieve this he
studies literature. There is practically no barrier in China to becoming
a "literate," and the classification means all that the word "gentleman"
can in Europe. For this and other reasons thousands of men in Canton
wear horn-rimmed spectacles, look wise, and discuss mundane affairs in a
manner brooking no contention. The literary bureaucracy of Canton wields
a mighty influence in the affairs of the nation, it is insisted. A
member of this class may not be able to do the simplest sum in
arithmetic without the assistance of his counting-machine, but he may be
able to write an essay on the meanings of ideographs, reproduce a
trimetrical classic, or quote the philosophic works of Confucius and the
Book of Mencius until you grow faint from listening.

Once every three years Canton teems with men, young and old, who have
gathered to compete for academic degrees. Any one save the son of a
barber, an actor, or the keeper of a brothel, may enter the list,
provided he possesses the certificate of a high school. A certain part
of the city not demanded by business or residential purposes is
designated as the Examination Hall, where 10,616 cells or compartments
are built of brick and wood. These cubicles, six by eight feet square,
are arranged in rows, like cattle-pens at an American agricultural
fair. Placed side by side t