It is said that I derive my opinions from | such a question as we have before us. my noble friend; but occasionally and at intervals I am capable of forming opinions of my own, and such an interval has occurred now. He refused to be an accomplice in "stabbing his party in the back,” and deserted Lord Randolph in the division. After this Churchill's appearance in debate became more rare. Still at irregular intervals he used to take part in discussion, and never failed to delight his listeners in a way which was only excelled by one other member of the House. Im agine a Cabinet Council sitting in the War It was enough. If there were any waverers before Churchill spoke there were none after, for it would have required strong conviction to carry a by member through this cascade of ridicule. turned in wonder to ask if this, then, was the Randolph who had towered so high and fallen so low? It was a sorrowful sight. The House of Commons has been charged with many defects, but it is touching to see the gentleness with which it deals with one whom it has once learnt to admire. In the words of the apostle, if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. After the defeat of the Unionists at t the polls in 1892, Lord Randolph threw in his lot heart and soul with his old A signal instance of his power to colleagues. Alas! it was no longer invest the dreariest subject with charm the same lightning oratory which used took place one drowsy Wednesday to sting Mr. Gladstone to indignant afternoon in June, 1888. The debate retort. The wreck wrought by overwas dull even according to the standard heavy drafts on the physical powers of Wednesday. The subject under was only too manifest. The speech discussion was Sir Edward Watkin's halted, the gesture failed; new memChannel Tunnel Scheme. Every argu-bers who beheld him for the first time ment that could be used on either side had been repeated over and over again in former sessions, and the discussion was being languidly kept up till enough members should come down for a division. Lord Randolph strolled listlessly into the House about four o'clock, stood at the bar pulling his moustache while Sir Hussey Vivian rolled forth his heavy periods, and, turning, asked a bystander what was the subject under discussion. Then he walked to his corner seat behind the treasury bench. 66 Randolph is up" was soon repeated through lobbies and smokingroom, and members crowded in, curious to know what line he would take. They were not long in doubt. Lifting the subject as if by magic out of the mud where it had been floundering for hours, he invested his denunciation of the scheme with all the charm of wit and perfect lucidity. The Hon. Baronet has told us that the proposed tunnel may be easily blocked by certain machinery which he or some friend of his has invented, connected with a but ton which was to be touched by a secretary of state in a Cabinet in Pall Mall. I ask whether such a ridiculous proposition was a worthy argument to be introduced into Lord Randolph Churchill's career lies before the young politician as both a warning and as a model. The warning takes the somewhat humdrum but eternally vital lesson that no spirit however imperious, no wit however poignant, no knowledge however complete avails to render a man independent of his associates. The one-man force may develop itself in process of years, but it is the growth of habit that makes others bow willingly to despotism of this sort. A notable element in Lord Randolph's failure was his impatience of the petits soins of every-day intercourse. His destiny might have been very differently shaped had he been at the pains to attach others to himself by ordinary civility. Hæc res et jungit, junctos et servat amicos. The model is found in the enormous | tunism. If there is any one strong advantage secured by any young mem- enough to steer a steady course, gifted ber who chooses to master the compli- with Churchill's fertility of resource, cated rules of procedure and precedent able to lay hold, as he did, of the popuin Parliament. In nothing is knowl-lar imagination, and capable, as he was edge more surely power than in this; not, of bringing out the best qualities without this the most brilliant gifts of his associates, the future of the may be wasted, the most favorable Constitutional party in this country opportunities thrown away. will be more auspicious than some of There are those persons of two ex-its best friends are able at present to tremes who are unable to see in Lord | believe. But if the decision on great Randolph Churchill's achievement questions of the hour is to be apmore than one of these aspects. To proached and undertaken solely with a those of one extreme his memory will view to their anticipated effect on the remain that of a dazzling constellation immediate fortunes of a political party, which, when it sank below the hori- and without regard to, or in defiance zon, left the heavens dark and the of, settled principles, disaster cannot prospect without life. To those of the long be postponed. What every great other extreme, his rise was the upward country stands in need of is a leader rush of the rocket, to be followed by who will lead and not follow, having the inglorious descent of the stick. the confidence of a body of men who But the great mass of his countrymen are indifferent to the allurements of will have in mind the imperious force office and are resolved to maintain a of the ascent, the pathos of the de- wise check on the forces of change. Not later than his prime in For such a party, led by one of the but hopelessly bankrupt in magnetic power of Churchill, the coun cline. try must look in the hour when prolonged adversity in commerce or serious restriction of employment shall have brought about the confusion of which we have long been on the brink; a party which has learnt how to deal sympathetically and effectively with the pressure of social problems, without exciting vain hopes or erecting visionary ideals. Should the country look for this in vain ? From Blackwood's Magazine. A VISIT TO THE BUDDHIST AND TAO-IST MONASTERIES ON THE LO FAU SAN. The effect of Lord Randolph's ascendency will long outlive himself. It To fathom the Chinese religion to its required the blow-pipe temperature of depths would require a knowledge of his energy to fuse the cast-iron preju- humanity, a patience, and a gift of dices of the Conservative party into tongues, such as few men can lay claim sympathy with the wants and aspira- to- certainly not the writer. But for tions of the new electorate. He effected people who are willing to accept broad this and did not remain to see the full approximations for truths, it is not results. The scope of these results hard to remember that the conscience will greatly depend upon the heads of China is acted on by four influences, and hands charged with the policy of which may be classified as agnosticism, the party in the next few years. There a folklore, and the fossil remains of is a dangerous tendency to pure oppor- two religions. 庭 By agnosticism, I mean the doc- | monasteries on the slopes of Lo Fau trines of Confucius, which, in name at Sau.1 least, are accepted by the mass of the gentry and literati. But Confucius was no prophet; he was a statesman and a philanthropist. It is true that he regulated with exactness the ancestral and spirit worship of his day; but that was only because there were four things which, his biographer says, he would never hear discussed; and of these one was revolutions, and the other was religion. Now, because this unbelieving Confucius is a guiding star to the whole educated population of China, therefore, with native logic, current, dodging destruction by the China builds temples for his worship, and worships him in every district city. By six o'clock on an August morning I was out on the river in a slipperboat, ready to catch the steam-tug that runs up to Shik Lung (Dragon Shore), E the starting-point for Lo Fau San. August is hot all over China; but in t Canton you gasp for a breath of air in the steam that rises from the polluted & river, and the thousand tainted sickly little smells which ooze up from a Chinese town. The tug being supposed to start at daybreak, it was natural that at eight we should still be lying in the But Confucianism has never affected the natural religion of the country. It has never shaken the universal belief in a teeming world of spirits jostling with the world of life, and helping, saving, tormenting, or destroying, according to circumstances. From this, China has evolved its most human and touching belief in the good-will of a man's father towards him after death. It is this that has kept the plains of China inviolate from the rush of the locomotive. Those two lines of thought, the sceptical and the pantheistic, belonging to the educated and ignorant classes respectively, but always acting and reacting on each other, may be considered as the bases of a Chinaman's faith. I have spoken of Tao-ism and Buddhism as fossils, because the fundamental doctrines of both religions have long since been unheeded and forgotten. Buddhist monks are made use of to bury the dead, and for their supposed ability to regulate the rainfall; and the Tao-ists gain influence by geomancy and their tutelage of popular deities; but these are the limits of their power. This being so, not much knowledge of the heart of China can be gained from the trip to be described. But to those who can content themselves with a general view of the show part of the creeds, I can heartily recommend a fortnight spent among the But foreign customs launches, as they Skipper. Tshaw! Go away. Skipper. You must! Go on to the barge. Passengers not allowed here [and he produced a paper]. Foreign Devil. I don't want to see it. Foreigners never travel on barges. Skipper (coming down a little, in an aside to the Late-born). What will he pay, if I let him stop? Foreign Devil (ditto ditto). Ask if I can stay for double fare? And so the negotiations proceeded on a strictly commercial basis. Indeed I cannot recommend the barge. It has three decks, each high enough to crawl under comfortably, 1 The Lo Fau San (Hill of the Floating Basket) lies about eighteen miles from Shik Lung, on the right bank of the Tang Kong or East River, some six hours' journey by river-steamer above Canton. strewed with Chinese, some sleeping, | in hot weather he is distinctly unpleassome smoking opium or tobacco and ant. This frout room is divided from spitting continuously. A native gen- the kitchen and pig-sty by what may be deman, under the circumstances, will called a distinguished-guest chamber strip off his long robe, curl himself up a box the size of the lift in a hotel on the planking, and go to sleep with with a narrow passage to form the conhis head on his elbow or a block of necting link. From the shop side this wood for a pillow; but for white men bedroom is entered by a half-door, the the tug is best. top part of which is latticed, and lets Barring accidents, Dragonshore is in just so much of the gloom without reached any time between two and five as will give an outline to the horrors in the afternoon. The town does not within. Here I was introduced to my look unpicturesque, with its line of landlord, who was lying in bed a-smoksquat brick houses flanking the river, ing. He graciously gave up his room and the strings of barges moored alongside; and when you have said that, you have said about all. A geologist's eye will note the formation of the landing-stage, an outcrop of broken potsherds through a bed of primary ooze. to me, and for want of better accommodation I installed myself therein. Over the rest of that day and night I will draw a veil. It will be enough to observe that the cloud of flies by day was followed by a cloud of mosquitoes by night. A roaring fire from the I asked my way to the inn of one of kitchen, with whiffs of cooking and the knot of loafers who had come to pig-sty, the sweet, nauseating smell of inspect me; and a boy was told off to opium,-if these and filth and bugs lead the way. In return for a civil past counting are enough to damn a request, Chinese are glad to render lodging-house, then let visitors beware such little services, as long as they cost and shun the sign of the Rich Man's nothing. The streets of Dragonshore Resort at Dragonshore. The obvious are about two paces wide. The after-alternative is to stay on board the. noon was hot and breathless. The at-launch all night and refuse to be mosphere of each shop swelled through evicted. the framework of door and window to The kulis had been engaged overmingle with the smell of the shop night, and had promised to be at the opposite; and as I passed under con- inn by daylight next day. They turned voy of my guide, we seemed to be up about eight, which was pretty well, working through successive layers of and by nine we were off. It is safe to pork, fruit, fish, and grocery essences, give your bearers an hour to play the all heated to a temperature of 90° fool in before they start; and the best Fahrenheit. thing to do is to begin breakfast when The inn at Dragonshore is not a suc- the boy announces in pure Hongkongcess in summer. You look in through ese, "That five piecee kuli-man he the open doorway on to a dingy little come, galáw! S'posee you makee room about twelve feet square, with a chop-chop all same bettal." greasy counter at one side, and a stock breakfast and a cigar, you will stroll in trade of rice, wine, dried fish, to- out to find a dense crowd surrounding bacco, and opium behind. Opposite your baggage, by this time carefully are two square, black tables (they were unpacked and arranged in little parcels white once) covered with bowls of salt on the roadway, in the midst of which vegetable and flies, round which half- the kulis are brandishing a steelyard, a-dozen laborers are sitting at their with fearful outcries and faces distorted rice. A Chinese kuli squatting half-with passion. It is annoying, as everynaked on a bench, with a bowl at his thing has been carefully packed and lips, stoking rice and bawling at the weighed and approved overnight, but same moment, is not a pretty spectacle you have no redress. You may ejacunder the most favorable conditions ulate, "Lai chi! Lai chi!" (Come, After go!) at intervals, to which all present ing, "These cash are ten parts [i.e., will respond, "Lai chu!" but it will one hundred per cent.] worthless; not make the smallest difference. and in corroboration of his statement, Still, everything must have au end; at your would-be victim points out, or last smiles are the order of the day; pretends to point out, the absence of every one says, "Come, go!" and you certain blurs on the horrid little rings are exhorted to get into your chair. of brass. The fact is that, quite apart There was one of my men who had from the difference in the rates of exsomewhat prepossessed me. He alone change, there are at least three sorts of had not grumbled about his burden, cash in circulation, golden, indifferent, but had sat stolidly on a lemonade-box, and worthless, just as if two good plastering a green leaf over a sore on shillings and a bad sixpence were legal his leg. It was at this moment that he tender for રી doubtful half-crown. showed his true colors. "Wait a bit," Then, again, one trade is by popular he said, with a face like a stone; feeling allowed a keener sensitiveness "tobacco-pipe forgotten, I must go on this point than is another. A clothhome get it." "O may Heaven bless ier will not reject so many of your you! and how far is your dear home?" cash as will a pawnbroker; as if a cab"Not far." "And how far is that? man were justified in biting on his "Not far; perhaps it is, speaking shilling, while a booking-clerk ought to roughly, more or less about four li" (a think himself lucky in getting what he mile and a half). Mere weak human- can, and should gladly accept two irrcity, under the circumstances, will proachable pennies for a 3d. fare. All "endure loss of capital," as a China- this and a great deal more every child man would say, and give the scoundrel of ten throughout the land has at his a farthing to buy a brand-new pipe at fingers' ends. Now what is the use of a shop across the road. Then your boy trying to teach a people our multiplicabethinks him that he must go and buy tion-table, whose every-day experience a dollar's worth of cash. He invariably proclaims: Twice two ought to make does this at the last minute, thus adding five; take heed lest it makes but three an associated horror to the intrinsic and a half. vileness of the coin. It is held by By the time I had pondered on these some that the coinage of China was things, the Late-born returned, his invented especially for the confusion cash wrapped in an aldermanic protuof the foreigner. At any rate, two berance round his waist; and we really market-villages twenty miles apart are did get off at last. The journey from quite certain to have a different rate of Dragonshore to Lo Fau San is across exchange, and (but this may be only a the alluvial plain of the East River. It coincidence) the foreigner is not the one is as uninteresting a twenty miles of who profits thereby. Thus, suppose swampy padi-land as can be found anyyou tender a dollar at Stone Umbrella where, and the roads are simply the mart, and after much weighing and slimy bunds between the rice-fields. testing thereof are given in exchange If the river is up, your kulis will, after 1,030 brass coins strung on a string, of starting, point out that the country is varying weight and thickness. Ar- flooded, and that you must go by boat rived at the Plain of Peace, you buy a through the creeks for a third of the dollar's worth of fowls, and put down way. They will not laugh externally your 1,030; only to be told that the as they tell you this. On the conexchange is 1,160, and you have to find trary, they will loudly express their the balance. Next day, having in- dissatisfaction; but if you listen carevested all your savings in cash, you fully to their conversation and merrireturn to Stone Umbrella, intending to ment for the rest of the day, you will buy up all the silver in circulation at find the point to be, that the fool of a the lower rate of exchange. Alas for red-hair-devil has paid them carrying your hopes! You are met with a chill-wages to sit in a boat for seven miles. 質 ta t |