mutual endearments, be wanting among the members o f the
fame family, living under the fame roof, it will be in vain to ex-
pedt to find them in the enlarged fphere o f public life. In fadt,
they have no kind o f friendly focieties nor meetings to talk
over the tranfadtions and the news o f the day. Thefe can only
take place in a free government. A Chinefe having finilhed his
daily employment retires to his; folitary apartment. There are,
it is true, a fort o f public houfes where the lower, orders o f
people fometimes refort for their cup o f tea or o f feau-tchoo (a
kind o f ardent fpirit diftilled from a mixture o f rice and other
grain) but fuch houfes are feldom, i f at all, frequented for-the
fake of. company. They are no incitement, as thofe are o f a
fimilar kind in Europe, to jovial pleafures or to vulgar ebriety.
From this odious vice the bulk o f the people are entirely free.
Among the multitudes which we daily faw, in paffing’from one
extremity o f the country to the other, I do not recolledt having
ever met with a fingle inftance o f a man being difguifed in
liquor. In Canton, where the lower orders o f people are employed
by Europeans and neceffarily mix with European fea-
men, intoxication is not unfrequent among the natives, but this
vice form« no part o f the general character o f the people. Whenever
a few Ghinefe happen to meet together, it is generally for
the purpofe o f gaming, or to eat a kettle o f boiled rice, or drink a
pot o f tea, or fmoke a pipe o f tobacco.
The upper ranks indulge at home in the ufe o f opium. Great
quantities o f this intoxicating drug are finuggledHnto the country,
notwith'ftanding all the precautions taken by the government
to prohibit the importation o f i t ; but it is too expenfive
to be ufed by thè common people. The officers o f the cuftoms
are not beyond a bribe. After receiving the fum agreed upon
between the importer and themfelves they frequently become
the purchafers o f the prohibited article. Moft o f the country
ihips' from Bengal carry opium to China; but that o f Turkey
fent from London in the China ihips is preferred, and fells at
near double the price o f the other. The governor o f Canton,
after defcribing in one o f his late proclamations on the fubjedt
the pernicious and fatal effedts arifing from the ufe o f opium,
obferves, “ Thus it is that foreigners by the means o f a vile ex-
“ crementitious fubftance derive from this empire the moft
“ folid profits and advantages ; but that our countrymen ihould
“ blindly purfue this deftrudtive and enfnaring vice, even till
“ death is the confequence, without being undeceived, is indeed
“ a fadt odious and deplorable in the higheft degree.” Yet
the governor o f Canton very compofedly takes his daily dole o f
opium.
T he young people have no occafional affembties for the'
purpofe o f dancing and o f exercifing themfelves in feats o f activity
which, in Europe, are'attended with the happy effedfs o f
ihaking o ff the gloom and melancholy that a life o f conftant
labour or feclufion from fociety is apt to promote. T h e y have
not even a fixed day o f reft fet apart for religious worffiip.
Their adts o f devotion partake o f the fame folitary caft
that prevails in their domeftic life. In none o f the different
fedts o f religion, which at various times have been imported
into, and adopted inC h in a , has congregational worlhip been
x incul