We once heard a friend describe a Chinese “chop,” on government-order. He was an officer on board a United States vessel, then lying in the harbor at Hong-kong. A great commotion was observable among the crowds of boats upon the water, when presently a gayly-decorated junk was observed approaching the vessel. She arrived at the side, when a pompous little official, with the air of an emperor, attended by two or three mandarins, was received on deck. He looked the personification of Imperial Dignity. He carried a short truncheon in his right hand, like Richard the Third; and with his “tail” (his own, and his followers’) he strode toward the quarter-deck. Arrived there, he unrolled his truncheon, a small square sheet of white parchment, bearing a single red character, and held it up to the astonished gaze of the officers and crew! This was a “_Vermilion Edict_,” that terrible thing, so often fulminated by Commissioner Lin against the “Outside Barbarians;” and that single red character was, “_Go away!_” After the exhibition of which, it was impossible (of course!) to stay in the Chinese waters. Having shown this, the great Mandarin and his “tail” departed in solemn silence over the side of the ship. Of these “special edicts,” especially those touching the expulsion of the “smoking mud,” or opium, from the “Central Kingdom,” we may give the readers of the “Drawer” specimens in some subsequent number; there happening to be in that miscellaneous receptacle quite a collection of authentic Chinese State Papers, with translations, notes, and introductions, by a distinguished American savant, long a resident in the “Celestial Flowery Land.” LITERARY NOTICES.