before something breaks, and you emerge into the sunlight with the same feeling you have when you get out of your cold bath after having remained in it half an hour too long. When you are really outside and hastening away, you turn to see if the motto under the British coat-of-arms over the doorway does not read “_Non possumus_,” and you wonder what the Consul does besides sentencing British subjects to deportation, and why they are deported, and how, and when, and whether it is done in public like a Chinese execution. And if you can help it, you do not go to that dreadful place again ever. It is a deplorable state of things in any British settlement to have British residents dislike meeting their Consul, to be uneasy in his presence, dissatisfied with his work, and, for practical business purposes, regardless of his existence. Every one out East knows that the British consular service needs remodelling, modernizing, and vitalizing with a new spirit--the spirit with which the British nation of to-day is imbued. It is useless blaming the system, or the men, or attempting to tinker with the existing service. In the State as in factories to retain and attempt to work with worn-out tools is false economy, and gives an advantage to better equipped competitors. We advise our manufacturers to throw their old-fashioned machinery on to the scrap heap, and start in with new machines and new methods, as being the only sensible way in which to attain success. So with the Chinese consular service, we cannot expect these men to adapt themselves to new conditions, to cut out their high faluting with international high diplomacy, and come down to brass tacks.