And so in China as in England, or perhaps even more in America, the industrial classes and the merchants have become the ruling power in the country. Socially they constitute a privileged class. As in Anglo-Saxon states the Chambers of Commerce and the Trade Unions, so in China the ancient Guilds arrange all business matters for themselves. The Guilds, indeed, are a most important institution in Chinese society. Their influence is not confined to trade and commerce; it dominates many other relations in life, and the often secret resolutions passed by the Guilds are of great force in matters of local administration and general politics. Some of the larger Guild or Club houses are well worth our attention. From an architectural point of view they are good specimens of old Chinese style. They generally consist of several buildings, or more correctly, of a row of halls and pagodas, separated by flower-gardens with small fishponds, and courts with shady groves. Besides the official departments there are conversation-halls and tea-rooms, much frequented by the members after the transaction of business. The most magnificent of these houses are found in the interior, in the cities on the Hoang-ho and the Yang-tze-kiang. The club-house of the tea-merchants at Hankau ranks first in point of artistic perfection. It is a good specimen of the national taste. Slender pagodas, china towers, trim gardens, boldly arched bridges, all harmonious in form and colour, testify to the marvellous creative genius of this people. Never have I seen such finely pointed, tent-shaped roofs, such delicately tapered gables, such carving, and such tracery. Never could I have believed it possible for any architect to build, in fragile clay and line pottery, such bastion-like walls, and towers reaching up into the sky, and surmounted by a roof of porcelain as delicate and rare as a precious teacup. These Guild-houses are truly store-houses of old Chinese art treasures, and in them receptions and dramatic performances often take place. Among the musical and theatrical entertainments of China, there are some which continue from morning till night. On their merit, however, a European can hardly be expected to pass a fair judgment. The queerness and quaintness of the performance is what strikes one most at first. Yet among the old dramatists there were many of first-rate talent, and life and knowledge of the world were very forcibly expressed by them, but in a form unfamiliar to the European mind. The Chinese, we think, are sometimes too realistic and somewhat formal actors; but yet, even in their modern, degenerate, historical pieces, we find frequent traces of the prehistoric ideals of the Greek drama.