where buckets, dippers, dishes, and pumps, are
made by the imitative Chinamen, after the
English and American models. There is a tailor's
shop, where articles of clothing are made for
those who are constant to the ancient style of
dress, where the workman sits cross-legged
precisely as an English tailor does, and draws
out his thread with that peculiar jerk which
tailors appear to think necessary to the effectual
completion of their stitches. There is a
doctor's shop or apothecary's, where the parcels
have cabalistic characters on them, only
intelligible to the vendor, and there is a shop which
has no counterpart in the European community.
There, sits an old Asiatic—one of the very few
ever seen with grey hairs, and these are only
the few which adorn his face, the rest being
as black as a coal—grinding away with all his
might from morning till night. The mill is of
the most ancient kind, being a smooth stone
hollowed out, into which the material he grinds
is put, and then another stone is placed on it,
and the contents are pounded and ground up to a
powder or paste. The grist put into this
mysterious mill is generally some kind of imported
nut, the Chinese name of which is "fow-
line." It is startling to think that a means
of grinding, possibly invented or adopted by
the banished Cain and his descendants, should
be in use here in this remote island continent
in the nineteenth century of the Christian
era.

Next door to this ancient specimen of
humanity, I once heard sounds of music. On
looking in, a young Chinaman was seen fingering
the great-grandfather of all the violins. The
instrument was a straight stick about three-
quarters of an inch across, with a flat piece at
the end, on which it rested. To the top of the
stick were fastened two strings of catgut, which
were again attached to the outer edge of the
wood on which it rested, and a bridge served to
keep the strings in proper tension. A bow of
the simplest construction served to produce the
most uniform monotonous melancholy sounds
ear ever heard. The fingering was precisely that
necessary in our violin playing; but it only
seemed to produce a greater or less volume of
sound of the same note. The instrument rested
on the knee of the player, and was about a foot
high, the bow being of the same length. The
performer appeared to be thoroughly absorbed in
his employment, and his solitary listener's face
had, for a Chinaman, as delighted and animated
an expression as might be produced on the face
of an European by a first-rate performance of a
sonata of Beethoven's.

The Chinese features are not usually mobile
and expressive. There is an intolerable sameness
in face, colouring, dress, and general appearance
among the Victorian Chinese, as compared with
Europeans. The race is so pure, that one sees
nothing but black eyes, black hair, and brown
skins. Though at first it is next to impossible
to distinguish one individual from another,
yet after a time it becomes easy to separate
the gentleman (there are a few) from the
peasant or boor, and the good from the bad,
with nearly as much accuracy as in the case of
Europeans.

VILLAGE HOSPITALS.

PUBLIC attention has lately been called to the
utility of Village Hospitals, and Mr. R. A.
Kinglake has given an interesting account of
one established at a place called Wrington.
The writer has felt the need of such an institution
in a remote part of the country, and it may
serve a good cause to state under what
circumstances.

Amongst various cases of illness and accident
which occurred there during this last autumn, a
poor boy was kicked by a cow, and some of the
small bones of his ankle were dislocated. He
was carried home, a distance of some miles, by a
friendly shepherd. The accident was treated as
a bruise. The boy's mother could not be
persuaded to send for the parish doctor until she
had exhausted all her own remedies. "Wait a
while," she said, day after day, "he'll be easier
to-morrow, and we don't like to trouble the
doctor till we've tried all else." At last,
however, the doctor was called in; but the boy's leg
was in so swollen a state by that time, that even
he detected no dislocation. He pulled out a
bottle of embrocation from his pocket,
recommended rubbing and a bandage, and then drove
away on his round of duty elsewhere.

When I called, on the same day, to inquire
after the boy, it was getting dark, and I found
the mother, without a candle, vigorously rubbing
the wrong leg with the embrocation: to the
half-concealed satisfaction of her son, who could
not bear the least touch on the injured limb.
As for a bandage, the poor people absolutely did
not know what a bandage was. I bandaged the leg
myself, but no improvement ensued; and after
another week or two of suffering, the mother at
length sent for a bone-setter, as she called him
(or, as we should say, a surgeon), from the nearest
town, who at once discovered what was the
matter, and set the bones right in a few minutes,
at a charge of ten shillings, which was paid. If
there had been a village hospital in the
neighbourhood, three weeks of suffering and loss of
time and work would have been spared.

There is great delicacy of feeling, although
much ignorance, among our poor people. "We
don't like to disturb the doctor," they say; "we
don't like to bring him three miles to see us, if
we can help it." And they will walk the three
miles, with a sick child in their arms, to save
him an extra drive in his gig. When scarlet
fever broke out in this village, I saw a child of
three years old, with the rash thickly spread
over her neck and shoulders, sitting on the same
bench with the other children in the school."
"It flies to the little ones," the parents said;
"and if we shut them up to keep out of the
way, the Lord can find them, if he wants them,
just the same." This little child was soon too
ill to come to school, and when I went to the