lanes, they formed one solid block; each
factory extending in length through the whole
breadth of the block, and having its own proper
name, which,—if not always appropriate, is
meant to be indicative of good fortune.

The first, beginning on the east, is
E-ho-hang (the factory of justice and grace);
foreigners call it the Creek-factory. The
second is the Dutch, called Tseih-e-hang (the
factory of collected justice). The third was
the British factory, Pauho-hang (the factory
that ensures tranquillity)—so called because
the trouble of the Chinese with barbarians
commonly comes from it. Hog-lane—some
time since closed—separated it from the
fourth, called Fung-tae-hang (the great and
affluent factory). The fifth was the old
English factory, called Lungshun-hang. The
sixth the Swedish factory, called Suy-hang.
The seventh is Maying-hang, commonly called
the Imperial factory. The eighth, Paoushun-
hang (the precious and prosperous factory).
The ninth, the American factory, called
Kwangyuen-hang (the factory of wide
fountain). This is separated by a broad street,
called Old China Street, from the tenth,
occupied by one of the Hong merchants.
The eleventh is the French factory. The
twelfth, the Spanish. The thirteenth, and
last, the Danish. The two latter are
separated by a street, occupied by Chinese
merchants, and usually called New China Street.
Each factory was divided into four or more
houses, of which each factor occupied one or
more, according to circumstances. The
factories were all built of brick, two stories
high, and presented a rather substantial
front; and, with the foreign flags which wave
over them, formed a striking, and, to the
stranger, a pleasing contrast with the national
banner and architecture of the celestial
empire. Some of them are now destroyed.

The population of Canton is a subject upon
which there has been considerable diversity
of opinion. The division of the city, which
has placed a part of it in Nanhae and a part
in Pwanyu, precludes the possibility of
ascertaining the exact number of inhabitants.
We may roughly estimate the truth by help
of some facts as to the number of persons
occupied in certain trades, as we find it
stated in a native publication. Here we
read that fifty thousand persons were
engaged in the manufacture of cloth; also that
there are seven thousand three hundred
barbers, and four thousand two hundred
shoemakers. But these three occupations,
employing sixty-one thousand five hundred
individuals, probably do not include more
than one-fourth part of the craftsmen of the
city. Allowing this to be the fact, the whole
number of mechanics will amount to two
hundred and forty-six thousand. These, we
may suppose, are a fourth part of the whole
population, exclusive of those living on the
river. In each of the eighty-four thousand
boats there are not, on an average, less than
three individuals, making a total of two
hundred and fifty-two thousand, Sir John
Bowring estimated three hundred thousand.
If now to these we add four times two
hundred and forty-six thousand, as the number of
mechanics, we have a total of one million
two hundred and thirty-six thousand, as a
rude estimate of the number of people living
in Canton.

POOR TOM.—A CITY WEED.

WHEN I first became acquainted with poor
Tom—Craddock was his surname—he was
about twenty-five years of age. His appearance
never altered. He must have been the
same at fifteen as he was at forty. Imagine
a short, shambling figure, with large hands
and feet, a huge water-on-the-brain looking
head, surmounted by rough, stubbly, red hair;
eyes that no mortal ever saw; for, suffering
from a painful ophthalmic disease, they were
always encased, not so much in spectacles as
in a perfect bandage of green glass; dress
which, though ill-made and of necessity
thread-bare, was always clean and respectable.
Imagine these things, and you have all
that I care to dwell upon of the physical
characteristics of poor Tom. He was earning
a very scanty pittance as an usher, or rather
common drudge at a classical and commercial
academy at Hackney, where I was sent as a
youth to learn the science of book-keeping
by single and double entry, and to post up
and arrange numerous imaginary transactions
of great intricacy and enormous magnitude
in sugar, hides, and tallow. Tom's intellectual
acquirements were on a par with his
physical advantages. Being sent out by his
parents into the world to shift for himself,
as his father had done before him, he had
shifted himself into a very ill-paid and
monotonous occupation.

Tom's parents were, no doubt, very good
people, as the world goes. The father was a
quiet, plodding man, with no ideas beyond the
routine of his office. He had been put into
an ordinary government situation in his early
youth, and had trudged backward and
forward on the same old road for eight and
fifty years. The mother was a hard, dry,
Calvinist, crammed to the throat with
doctrine, but with neither head nor heart. Her
children—and she had eight—were all the same
to her; the girls went out and kept schools,
and the boys went into the world to sink or
swim, as their father had done before them.
They had all been decently clothed and fed up
to a certain age,—they had all had the same
meaningless education—they had all sat
under the same minister, and had served as
teachers in the same Sunday-school. They
were all with the—exception of Tom—cold,
hard, selfish, and calculating; there was
nothing like love amongst them; its place
was supplied by a propriety of regard that
was regulated by the principle of duty.