A call that I made upon a high official in an interior city
developed a curious interest. He was a pale, thin man,
apparently an opium smoker and a mandarin of the old school.
But he was intelligent enough to ask me not only about ``the
twenty-story buildings of New York,'' but ``the differences
between the various Protestant sects,'' and in particular about
``the Mormons and their strength!'' Who could have
imagined that the Latter Day Saints of Utah could be known to a
Chinese nobleman of Chih-li? Verily, our own idiosyncrasies
are known afar.

It will thus be seen that mutual recriminations regarding
national peculiarities are not likely to be convincing to either
party. Human nature is much the same the world over. From
this view-point at least we may discreetly remember that

``There is so much bad in the best of us,
And so much good in the worst of us,
That it hardly behoves any of us
To talk about the rest of us.''


I do not mean to give an exaggerated impression of the
virtues of the Chinese or what Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop calls
``a milk-and-water idea'' of heathenism. Undoubtedly, they
have grave defects. Official corruption is well-nigh universal.
A correspondent of the North China Herald reports a well-
informed Chinese gentleman of the Province of Chih-li as
expressing the conviction that one-half the land tax never reaches
the Government. ``But that is not all,'' said he.