In a former book, _The Chinese_, I have referred to the high cost of living at Hongkong, Shanghai, etc., as far as rent is concerned. This is because a navy and army have to be maintained. It is well known that Hongkong contributes to the British Budget more pro rata than any part of the long red line of British empire. The man who goes to the hot damp East to advance the cause of imperialism, and who reads Kipling and Gilbert Parker, pays high for it in money as well as health, and he deserves more than he receives. Land values are twice what they are in the suburban cities of New York, such as Brooklyn and Jersey City, and twice what they are in the outlying wards of London. Yaumati is a section of Hongkong’s colony on the China mainland, and values there are not so high as on hilly Hongkong Island. Yet a plot of land 150 by 140 feet, recently sold in Yaumati for $8,700 gold. No American or European should be sent to the treaty ports of the Far East to support any cause, diplomatic, military, commercial, scientific, academic, religious, or international customs, who is not given twice the emolument that he would receive at home. Yet the mission leaders in particular generously accept far less than they would receive as workers in America. The foreigner has a larger list of supplies to pick from than was the case before modern roads were opened and the Chinese were taught to farm for the foreigner’s table. Ice houses, ice machinery, inspected markets, and water tanks for fish all have aided. Not so long ago we in the Far East were benzoate of soda and salicylic acid fiends, the men Doctor Wiley bemoaned; that is to say, our gun was a can-opener, and our game was tinned foods. We could go out into the jungle of Queens Road or the praya, Hongkong; Nanking Road, Shanghai; Kaiser Road, or the Chien Men Fair, Peking; or the bunds at Tientsin, Canton or Hankau, on our way home from office, and with our weapon bring down the foods of Europe, America and Australia, running, of course, not a little risk of ptomaine poisoning, positively ruining our stomachs forever, and becoming a permanent dyspeptic charge upon the nerves of the long-suffering community! Now things are better. Here is a list of fresh foods procurable in the larger ports. In the plague, typhoid or cholera season, some eschew fresh vegetables, and again, when they recall that the farmer is the town scavenger, some eschew fresh vegetables at all seasons! I quote the prices in gold, and give the Chinese word your lordly cook calls out to the obsequious stallsman, so that the stranger may gain an idea that Chinese does not sound unmusical: MEAT