ssion
teachers of my denomination have died of smallpox: they "didn't
believe in vaccination." Shanghai, as I write this, is just recovering
from a bubonic plague scare. There were one or two deaths from the
plague among the Chinese, whereupon the foreigners put into force such
drastic quarantine regulations that the Chinese rebelled with riots.
The whites then put their cannon into position, the volunteer soldiers
were called out, and it looked at one time as if I should find the
city in a state of bloody civil war, but fortunately the trouble seems
now to have blown over.

Unfortunately the ignorant Chinese put a great deal more faith in
patent medicines and patent medicine fakirs than they do in approved
sanitary measures. It is interesting to find that American patent
medicines discredited at home by {136} the growing intelligence of our
people have now taken refuge in the Orient, and are coining the poor
Chinaman's ignorance into substantial shekels. Worst of all, some of
the religious papers over here are helping them to delude the
unintelligent, just as too many of our church papers at home are
doing.

In Shanghai I picked up a weekly publication printed in Chinese and
issued by the Christian Literature Society, and asked what was the
advertisement on the back. "Dr. Williams's Pink Pills for Pale
People," was the answer.

One of the most peculiar things about China is the existence of almost
unlimited official corruption side by side with high standards of
honesty and morality in ordinary business or private life. I have
already referred to the system of "squeeze" or graft by which almost
every official gets the bulk of his earnings. In Shanghai it is said
that the Taotai, or chief official there, paid $50,000 (gold) for an
office for which the salary is only $1500 (gold) a year.

Against this concrete evidence of official corruption place this
evidence of a high sense of honor in private life. A young Chinaman,
employed in a position of trust in Hankow, embezzled some money. The
company, knowing that his family was one of some standing, notified
the father. He and his sons, brothers of the thief, went after the
young fellow and killed him with an ax. The community as a whole
approved the action, because in no other way could the father free his
family from the disgrace and ostracism it would have incurred by
having an embezzler in it.

{137}
[Illustration: FASHIONABLE CHINESE DINNER PARTY.]

[Illustr