Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. Vol. 13, no. 3.

Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. Vol. 13, no. 3. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    47/128 (page 177)
    &c.t was provided them; that besides these 800 there are 1200 other inmates, who are too old or infirm to work; and that a staff of 40 native doctors gave gratuitous advice and medicine to the 2000 inmates. None are allowed to be absolutely idle, but help towards their own sustenance by rearing fowls, pigs, cotton-spin- ning, and other light work. Sanitary regulations with regard to cleanliness, &c., are not, I regret to say, as rigorously enforced as they might be, but still this pleased me as being not only the largest in scale of all the charitable associations I have heard of in China, but also the best conducted; other charitable associations, such as that for the prevention of infanticide, the burial of the uncofBned dead, foundling institutions, and free schools, being generally more or less marred by abuses. I regret that time does not allow me to dilate further on these charitable institutions in China, as I believe their existence and working is not generally known in England. We visited the monuments which have lately been erected to the memory of the Chinese who fell fighting against the rebels, and I trust I am not betraying diplomatic secrets in saying that the enlightened Viceroy Ma has recommended the Emperor to order a similar monument to be erected at Hangchow to the English and French who died in the Taiping war. Hangchow being nearly 200 miles distant from the nearest port, I think this fact alone proves that, though local disturbances may cause local irritation, the mass of the Chinese people and the Chinese Government are grateful for the assistance Europeans gave them in suppressing the dreadful scourge of the rebellion. At Ningpo itself one such monument already exists. The next day I had to call on the Governor-General Li, brother of the well-known Li Fu-t’ai, under the following circumstances :— An order had lately been issued for the reparation of the great sea- barrier of the Chekiang province, to which I have before made allusion, and decreeing that all the stones that could be supplied by the stone-quarries in the province should be devoted to this purpose, and only the lesser stones sold to the general public. As a matter of form permission had to be asked for an exception in our favour. This great sea-barrier is built- of large, flat flag-stones, is about 100 feet wide, and on an angle of about 15° with the hori- zon. The lower stones overlap the higher ones, and they are all fastened together by means of huge stone bolts with here and there iron clams. This sea-barrier stretches right from the southern bank of the Hau estuary’s river to Chinhai, the seaport of N ingpo (Chinhai is 13 miles distant from Ningpo). The first origin of this