ENGLISHMEN ABROAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 672, 12 February 1864, Page 6

ENGLISHMEN ABROAD

A correspondent who states that he has had fifteen years' experience in various parts of the world, says:—" I believe we bring all our troubles upon ourselves, and most richly deserve them; for wherever an Englishman goes he carries with him the belief that his country is so rich and powerful, and that he himself is such an august animal, that he can trample the manners and cherished- customs of other nations under his feet with impunity. I have seen this over and over again, and often, when expecting a row, have been surprised to see the anger of some justly irate foreigner cool down into a sort of contempt when he discovered his insulter to be ' only an Englishman.' I have seen thing 3 done abroad by Englishmen which, if done by any foreigner in this country, would bring upon him instant punishment at the hands of the people. I don't want to swell my letter very large, but I will give you one instance out of many. Two or three days after we took possession of Pekin, I was walking with an officer of the —th, an Irishman, along one of the principal streets of the city. We were on a narrow footpath, on either side of which was a ditch of filth about twelve or fourteen feet wide. Now, it

is the custom in China that when two people meet neither gives way before the other to pass, but both give way in a sidelong fashion. We met several persons who stood still and sidled in this manner, but my companion was not satisfied with this; he said, ' the people he met should make way for him, and that the next who did not do it should go into tjhe ditch.' Almost immediately a young Chinese dandy, dressed in his silks, his pet bird perched on the stick in his hand, and his face covered with smirks and smiles, came up to us, and stopped as usual. My companion, who was a young Hercules, took him up by the middle and flung him bodily into the ditch, from which he scrambled to the other side, half stifled and blinded with the filth which Bovered him. Some hundreds of people witnessed this, and I quite expected some disastrous end of this affair; but to my astonishment, as the poor wretch floundered up the bank, very like Punch's ' Father Thames,' he was received with a. roar of laughter, and we walked on unmolested. In Japan no one is allowed to fire a gun within twenty yards of the Tycoon's palace, yet the foreign residents and visitors to Yokohama and Kanagawa are constantly in the habit of shooting game, as strictly preserved _as our own at home. I have been invited to shoot by members of the Legation, who co from Jeddo to Yokohama for the purpose, and although I have heard Mr. Alcock say they ought not to do it, no obI stacle has been offered to their going. No merchant, or shopkeeper, or woman in Japan is allowed to ride a horse beyond a walking pace, but no sooner does an English man or woman arrive at the place than they mount horses and gallop them madly through streets as crowded as the Strand. For 22 miles out of Jeddo the high road through Kanagawa is an almost unbroken street, and I have seen parties gallop along, scattering men, women, and children in all directions, their pattens making it almost impossible for them to get out of the way, and I have often wondered how they managed it. It was well known that' Dan,' Mr. Alcock's servant, who was killed, brought about his death by his own indiscretion in pushing himself into the company of some woman of too high a class for him, and he was warned beforehand what he would bring upon himself. Mr. Moss's affair is now well known; the whole community _ who tried him were unanimous in punishing him. I have seen the same conduct of my countrymen wherever I have gone, and I know the late affair at Kio was something similar. I can assure you, if we go to war with the Japanese, we must not blind ourselves with the belief we shall have a second Chinese affair. They are bold, courageous, proud, and eager after every kind of knowledge. A friend of mine gave a workman a Bramah lock to put on a box; it was not discovered until some time afterwards, and only then by the absence of the name, that the lock had been imitated, and, as the workman confessed, the original kept as a pattern. I have been on board a steamer (paddle), which used three years ago to run between Nagasaki and Jeddo, 600 miles, whose engines and boilers, and every part of her machinery, were made of copper. She was built by a doctor in Jeddo, whose only guide was a Dutch description of a steam engine translated into Japanese. An American gunnery officer was sent over in 1859, in the Powhattan, to teach them gunnery. He was courteously received, and then taken over the arsenal at Jeddo. He returned to the ship, saying "he had been taught a' lesson instead of having to teach." In many of the arts and manufactures they excel us; their beautiful castings in bronze would puzzle the most experienced European workman. I have shown specimens to clever workmen who have confessed they could not imitate them. Though they do not know how to blow glass, I have seen samples which would rival in brilliancy any made in England. The French minister had a large ball, so clear, and of such perfect colour, that he believed it to be a gigantic sapphire, and bought it for a good round sum. Their paper imitations of leather are perfect; their paper waterproof coats are bought by the captains of ships for their exposed boats' crews; their own clocks are good, and they have imitated our watches; they walk about with " pedometers" attached to their belts, and they are not backward in copperplate engraving and perspective. Their china is far superior to the Chinese. The country abounds with coal, though they only use that found close to the surface ; but even that, a sort of bituminous shale, is good. In gold and silver I believe they could rival Mexico and Australia; iron, copper, and tin are found in profusion. A friend of mine at Yokohama gave a Japanese a piece of English cotton shirting ; in a few days the man brought back two pieces, and my friend had much difficulty in saying which was his, so closely had it been imitated. In fact, they are a people who want for nothing but teachers."

The Ghost on Board the Great Eastern. —Captain Paton, in an interesting address delivered by him in Liverpool said there was a j belief that the Great. Ship was haunted. The tale was, that during her building1 an unfortunate riveter was himself " closed in" and riveted up in one of the passages between the two skins. Certain it was that one of the workmen mysteriously disappeared, and did not even turn up on Saturday" night for his waees. The report was current at Milford ; when the ship was there the hands would frequently rush on deck at night and declare they would not go below again, for they could hear the riveter's ghost hard at « ork riveting. One day at New York, one of thediyers came up from the water pale and trembling, stripped off his apparatus, and said he would go down no more, for he had heard the ghost at work immediately over his head when under the ship's bottom. The divers generally gave full credit to the story, and they had several of the New York prof, s-ional spirit mediums on board —though he (Captain Paton) did not know of this until afterwards - who selemnly declared that the poor riveter, soul and body, was confined in the bottom of the ship ! It so happened that the ghost was only heard when the ship was swinging at anchor; his ghostship never worked at sea. The ghost, they would please to observe, was a real ghost— he (Captain Paton) often heard his "tap, tap." It chanced that one dny he was pulling round the ship in a boat, and had his attention directed to the swivel at the how by which the ship swung with two anchors. Theie was no room for oil about this bit of iron—it weighed 25 cwt., and as the chain came upon it it made a "chink, chink, chink," which could be heard all over the ship from the vibration, and might, under certain circumstances—just tumbling into bed in the dark, for instance—be very well mistaken for the noise made by a riveter hard at work. So they laid the ghost on board the Great Eastern. (Laughter*)

Scruples in Good Society.—Lady (Jlamis, being asked to give evidence in a court of law, at St. Alban's, declares her readiness to tell all that she knows, but declined to lake an oath, believintr that it is breaking tl c third commandment to appeal to the Supreme Being in reference to a trifle. Legally, of course she is wrong, because the law ordains the oath. Theologically, she is wrong, because theology teaches that petitions should be addressed for small things as well as great. And she is wrong on the common sense question; for the honesty or dishonesty of a person's character is not a trifle, and that is what an action virtually establishes. On the other hand, such a scruple, defensible or not, is a iact, and it is also a fact that Lady Glamis was turned out of court and justice denied, as would be in the case of many other excellent persons who cannot make up their minds to declare their belief ia an Inferno Perhaps, now that a lady, whose name is in the peerage, has been thus treated, the attention of the legislature may be directed to the consideration whether a conscience ought, necessarily, to be a convertible term for an outlawry,