This cloth peddler is really a most advanced man, and a true pioneer in promoting liberal ideas with regard to dress. The Chinese one _beau-ideal_ with regard to that is the blue cotton cloth. Just as bread in England is the staple article of the food of the masses, so that in China is the one eternal type of what is considered the proper kind of material with which to clothe the nation. The common people everywhere make that the basis of their dress. The farmers all dress in this distressingly dull-coloured material. The common coolies and workmen of every grade in life, following the national instinct, seldom wear anything else. It is only the well-to-do or the very rich that emerge out of this universal worship of the blue cotton, and adopt silks or satins as their common wear. The women, it is true, have a few bright colours in addition to the blue in which they appear when they are fully dressed and on holiday occasions, but for ordinary and common everyday life the blue cotton asserts its mastery, and holds its own against everything else. Now this peddler is slowly causing a revolution in the ideals of the women at least. In order to advance his business he brings the newest patterns and the most attractive goods that enterprising merchants, both native and foreign, are introducing from the West. He has no large stocks in hand that he must dispose of before he can bring in new and fashionable materials. All that he possesses, or nearly so, he carries with him on his shoulder, and when they are disposed of, he simply goes to the merchant and selects other goods that he has found by experience will catch the eye of the younger women and girls that he meets on his round, and induce them to buy from him. The great aid that this man gets in his introduction of new ideas amongst the women no doubt is Christianity. This has worked a perfect revolution in family life wherever it has been received. Not only is the condition of the women ameliorated, but their position is distinctly elevated. They are not left to the tender mercies of heathen society to be treated with the indignities to which they are constantly liable. The Church is always behind them to stand out in their defence when any wrong is going to be inflicted on them. A new power has come into the land that demands rights for them that no legislation in the past and no tradition has ever dreamed of asking.