VIH

PREFACE

little  to  the  knowledge  of  the  sinologue  ;  but  the  great
majority  of  the  men  of  Western  countries  living  in  China
know  little  of  the  people  among  whom  their  lives  are  spent,
or  of  the  Empire  within  whose  borders  they  pursue  their
avocations.  Much  interest,  too,  has  been  aroused  of  late
in  the  home  lands  in  the  study  of  Chinese  affairs,  and  we
have  seen  members  of  Parliament  and  of  Congress  manifesting ­
  an  intelligent  interest  and  some  adequacy  of  knowledge ­
  in  matters  connected  with  the  Orient.  American
Consuls,  too,  have  shown  a  desire  to  acquire  information  on
the  country  in  which  they  expect  to  spend  at  least  four
years  of  their  lives.  All  those  classes  will,  I  hope,  find  in
these  pages  some  information  on  subjects  on  which  they
may  seek  knowledge.
My  thirty-three  years  in  China  debar  me  from  presenting ­
  those  first  impressions  which  are  always  the  most
vivid.  That  same  length  of  experience  has,  however,
enabled  me,  where  my  own  knowledge  has  failed,  to  know
where  to  look  for  authentic  information  by  standard  authorities. ­
  To  discriminate  between  these  authorities  would  be
to  set  up  an  Index  Expurgatorius  ;  but  I  may  be  permitted
to  say  that  statements  of  fact  in  general,  and  deductions
in  the  main,  in  the  books  of  Dr.  Arthur  Smith,  Mr.  E.  H.
Parker  and  Mr.  Alexander  Hosie,  may  be  accepted  as  sound
and  based  on  full  information.
The  first  two  chapters  on  Chinese  History  have  been
written  by  the  Rev.  F.  L.  Hawks  Pott,  D.D.,  President  of
St.  John’s  College  at  Shanghai,  and  author  of  the  useful
Sketch  of  Chinese  History.  His  task  of  condensing  the
history  of  forty  centuries  into  as  many  pages  has  been
performed  in  a  very  judicious  way.
Something  of  the  chapter  on  “  Extraterritoriality  ”  was
incorporated  in  an  article,  entitled  "  Foreign  Privilege  in
China,”  which  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  November ­
  1906  ;  and  which  is  permitted  to  be  used  by  the  courtesy
of  the  editor.  The  chapter  on  Currency  is  condensed  from
a  paper  which  I  read  in  November  1906,  before  the  China
Branch  of  .the  Royal  Asiatic  Society  ;  even  in  its  present