“Polygamy,” says Mr Lay, “is not practised by all, and is seldom indulged in till the husband is advanced in years. It appears that by far the greater number among the rich, as well as all among the poor, reap the solaces of connubial life without suffering this hemlock to grow in their furrows. A few, from the surfeit of too much ease and prosperity, indulge in this practice, and a few more have recourse to it for the sake of building up their house with an heir, or a more numerous progeny;” while on the other side, it is fostered by “the anxiety of parents to see their daughters provided for in the houses of the great, and to reap a personal advantage from noble alliances.” For untiring industry, cheerfulness of temper, fidelity to their husbands, and care of their offspring, the poor women are every way exemplary. Any one who visits China will find proofs of this wherever he turns his eyes, and a traveller has only to lay his hand upon the head of a little child to earn applause from a whole crowd of bystanders. Constancy, habit of respect, and the social feeling are easily recognisable in the character of the Chinese women. Chinese stories are full of examples of love that knows no bounds. “There is only one heaven,” said a forlorn maiden, when her parents upbraided her for spending her days in sorrowful libations of salt tears at the tomb of her lover, “and he was that heaven to me!” “A native of the United States,” says Mr Lay, “married a Chinese female, who had never felt the benefits of education, and therefore could scarcely have learnt to cultivate this sentiment by lessons from those who were older than herself. She accompanied her husband to America, and afterwards back again to Macao, where a friend of mine paid her lord a visit. On his return, I asked him how she demeaned herself towards her better half. ‘With great respect,’ was the answer. And this testimony in her favour was not solitary; for the captain who conveyed the pair across the Atlantic declared he had never met with such passengers before, and that the wife rendered the services of a stewardess unnecessary in the cabin, and with her own hands kept everything in an admirable state of order and neatness.” When a stranger sees that a Chinese lady of the house is not entitled to receive any civilities or acts of courtesy from the friend of her husband, and forgets that this interdict is founded upon motives of propriety, consecrated by the usage of the earliest times, he is very apt to think her slighted, and that those apartments which the Chinese have decorated with so many flowery names are but a sort of prison. This is a great mistake, however, and the women of China are not only exempt from that rigid seclusion which prevails elsewhere in the East; but are treated much more nearly on terms of equality with their husbands. There is nothing abject or mean, either in principle or practice, in the deference which is paid, among high and low alike, to