foreign residents of Shanghai that the opening of this electric line might be the signal for serious disturbances. A rather sensational article which recently appeared in the South China Gazette, a paper which is widely read, and which has perhaps the largest circulation of any native newspaper in the empire, is characteristic of the tone of the vernacular press. The article describes the evils which may be expected to follow the installation of the electric system, and proposes a boycott, and in a subtle way suggests the carrying out of more drastic measures, should the boycott prove ineffectual. The writer further points out the danger that will arise because of thousands of jinrikisha men being thrown out of employment, and emphasizes the probable loss to business because of the inability of pedestrians to use the streets on which the trams will run. Of course, time alone will tell whether any serious difficulties will arise, and whether this first electric road will have to meet the same fate that befell the first railroad that was built in the empire. The light of a higher civilization is rapidly dawning, however, and it is likely that it will be more fortunate. The more intelligent Chinese are beginning to realize very keenly that in order to maintain their own, they must adopt the methods and contrivances of the foreigners.

In Nankin modern methods have been adopted in policing the city. The police force is well organized, and neatly uniformed. They wear highly polished, high-top boots, dark red trousers and coats, small skull caps with tassels, a long cue, and each has a sword. They make a nice appearance. One of these policemen is stationed at every important crossing, and others are placed short distances apart along the streets. The principal street, the Maloo, which is five miles in length, is as well policed, and the traffic is as perfectly handled, as on the Strand or Regent Street in London. The Maloo is well lighted at night with oil lamps, and in many respects has the appearance of a well-kept avenue in some of the larger western cities.

Up to the present time, they have no sewerage system, and the water is supplied from the rivers and wells, principally the latter; however, they have good telephone service, and in the yamens, the large foreign-goods stores, restaurants and business houses use telephones.

They also have phonographsi n Japan, and one

can hear anything from grand opera to the most weird Chinese music, which no one but a native could describe.

Sixty miles below Nankin is Chinkiang, the most important commercial city in the consular district. In the native part of this city, they have an electric light plant, but in the foreign settlements they have none, owing to the differences that exist between the two localities in relation to the charges that should prevail for introducing the system among the foreigners.

Canton is coming rapidly to the front She has large schools, hospitals, and many municipal improvements, and in the other large cities of the empire there is a general awakening.

We have a large flour trade in the Orient. The shipments made from Portland, Oregon, during the month of May broke all previous records, the total amount shipped being 244,000 barrels, which were valued at $906,616. It required more than a million bushels of wheat to produce this flour, and the wheat was worth $596,456. During the past eleven months more than four million barrels of flour have been shipped to the Orient from Oregon and Washington ports. For the first time in history, the amount of flour shipped to the Orient has exceeded the amount of wheat. The figures for the season ending May 31 show that a little less than fourteen million bushels of wheat were shipped from the Oregon and Washington ports, and that it took over eighteen millions of bushels of wheat to produce the flour that was shipped.

Our flour trade with the Orient will increase rapidly from now on. The foreigners all use it, and the natives are beginning to prefer it to rice, as they believe that many of the diseases with which they are afflicted are caused by their eating too much rice.

The business integrity of the Chinese is unquestioned. One of our American merchants told me that during the last eighteen months he had sold $750,000 worth of merchandise in China, and that he had received all his money with the exception of $175, and that he knew he would also be able to collect this amount.

China has also been awakened from her lethargy in regard to Christianity. The persecution of Christian missionaries has ceased almost entirely, and they can go about their work unmolested.

While I was in Shanghai the missionaries were holding a con

ference in that city. About one thousand delegates attended the meetings, and they represented four thousand missionaries, belonging to seventy-four different denominations. They held three meetings every day for a week, and the burden of their discussion was, "How shall we make the Chinese Christians?"

The conference was called at this particular time to do honor to the memory of Robert Morris, the great evangelist, who landed in China just one hundred years ago.

All of the missionaries reported progress in their work, and all seemed happy in the callings in which they were engaged. The Methodist Episcopal church has eight hundred missionaries laboring in what is called the "China Interior Mission." These missionaries are accompanied by their families. They are furnished a home and paid a salary. They dress like the Chinese, even to the cue, but recently an order was issued which will permit them to use their own discretion in the matter of dress in future. These missionaries are expected to remain from eight to ten years at a time in their mission fields. Then they are given a vacation for eight months, to visit their native homes. During these vacations they are paid their salaries, and their expenses.

The American mission is by far the wealthiest. A committee returned on the S. S. Minnesota, which arrived in Seattle, June 9. They had explicit instructions to collect $500,000 for the purpose of building churches, hospitals, etc., and they expected to be able to easily raise this amount in a few months in the New England States.

The Japanese have had a more meteoric awakening than the Chinese. They are weak as originators, but the quickest imitators that the world has ever known, and they have rapidly copied after what they have seen in the civilization of Europe and America. Their railroads are conducted somewhat along the same lines as the railroads of England, and their system is almost as perfect. Dining cars and sleepers are attached to all first class trains; the engineers, firemen, conductors, and even the porter boys are neatly uniformed, and are ornamented with plenty of brass buttons. The government owns and controls most of the railroads, and even the electric car systems.