The mainstay of Chinese revenue, and the main security as yet for foreign loans, is the National (formerly Imperial) Customs of five per cent. duty ad valorem. The organization was started at Canton in 1859 by Sir Robert Hart, an Armagh Irishman who was transferred from the British consular service. He served as head from that year until his retirement with a fortune of $500,000 in 1910. Sir Robert Hart lived in princely style at Peking and managed the service honestly. He has been criticized for taking so large a reward from straitened China by members of the India civil service, who are satisfied to retire on $1,000 a year after even more arduous service. In 1901 Sir Robert Hart wrote his book, _These from the Land of Sinim_. He was a brilliant propagandist for things Chinese, the most popular Occidental who ever served China, though he was not so heroic a figure as “Chinese” Gordon. Sir Robert Bredon was next in office, and in 1911 Sir Francis Aglen was put in charge. The son of an English clergyman, a well equipped sinologue, trained under Sir Robert Hart, Mr. Aglen is a thorough leader of this great work, which includes loan departments, lighthouse service, a cadet school, a pension bureau, and an internal revenue organization to a degree. As British commerce is the largest in China, being nearly four times as large as America’s trade, the British name the head of the customs service. Many Americans, Germans and French are also employed, and a thorough knowledge of Chinese and its dialects is insisted upon by Sir Francis Aglen. In the region about Shanghai and Nanking, the name of “Chinese” Gordon (General Charles) still lives for his victorious leadership of Li Hung Chang’s army, which crushed the Taiping rebellion, and saved the Manchu throne for the time. General Gordon had many bitter quarrels with Li Hung Chang, insisting that assassination and murder must not follow a victory. That the rebels of 1911 in this same region did not forget Gordon’s precepts was shown by their leniency under great provocation, after capturing Nanking from the Manchus. No foreigner who has aided in forming the ten divisions of China’s Northern army has had the personality or exercised the influence that Gordon did, and in the great trial of the revolution and the mutinies of 1911–12 the army showed frequently that no strong personality had inspired the men with a fixed purpose, honor or patriotism.