There is one ray of light which, to-day, illuminates the China Coast. It is a small ray, when we consider the number of dark corners to be illuminated, and yet there is the bare possibility that it may prove the beginning of better conditions. Somewhat less than two years ago the United States government established a wholly new institution, the United States Court for China. L. R. Wilfley, one of the legal officers whom Judge Taft had trained in Manila during his governorship of the Philippines, was appointed the first judge of this court, and was sent out, with a district attorney, a marshal, and a clerk, to administer justice to Americans up and down the China Coast and along the Yangtse River. By treaty, all American citizens are exempt from judgment under the Chinese law, that peculiar jumble of tradition, superstition, common sense, and Oriental severity. Formerly, justice had been dealt out in courts presided over by the consul-generals and the consuls in their respective districts. Now it should be obvious to the most casual observer that the peculiar conditions and the peculiar industries which thrive in the treaty ports give rise to a considerable number of legal entanglements. There is, of course, a large volume of legitimate business transacted on the Coast, which gives legitimate employment to a few lawyers; but there is a volume of illegitimate and semi-legitimate business which would also naturally give employment to other lawyers. At the time of Judge Wilfley's appointment one thing was clear to the enlightened heads of our Department of State at Washington; the consular courts, thanks to the skill and resource of the American lawyer on the Coast, were in a constant tangle of perplexed inefficiency, and the American name was sinking steadily lower in China.