While the Government of China is a paternal despotism in
form and while it is always weak and corrupt and often cruel
and tyrannical in practice, nevertheless there is a larger measure
of individual freedom than might be supposed. ``There are
no passports, no restraints on liberty, no frontiers, no caste
prejudices, no food scruples, no sanitary measures, no laws
except popular customs and criminal statutes. China is in
many senses one vast republic, in which personal restraints
have no existence.''[12]


[12] E. H Parker, ``China.''


We must not form our opinion from the Chinese whom we
see in the United States. True, most of them are kindly,
patient and industrious, while some are highly intelligent.
But, with comparatively few exceptions, they are from the
lower classes of a single province of Kwan-tung--Cantonese
coolies. The Chinese might as fairly form their opinion of
Americans from our day-labourers. But there are able men in
the Celestial Empire. Bishop Andrews returned from China
to characterize the Chinese as ``a people of brains.'' When
Viceroy Li Hung Chang visited this country, all who met him
unhesitatingly pronounced him a great man. The New York
Tribune characterizes the late Liu Kun Yi, Viceroy of Nanking,
as a man who ``rendered inestimable services to China and to
the whole world,'' ``a man of action, who acted with a strong