"I have heard a curious story of how the foreigners have secured more privileges than are allowed to the native merchants. Every district has the right to tax goods passing through it. At each district there is a barrier, commanded by a petty official, with a military guard, and here each native boat must stop and pay the transit tax. For long distances these taxes amount to a large sum, and frequently are a great deal more than the goods cost originally. These taxes are known as 'squeezes,' and the barriers where they are paid are called 'squeeze stations.' But the foreigners have secured a treaty with China, or, rather, there is a clause in one of the treaties, which exempts them from the payment of the transit 'squeezes;' they only pay the customs duties, and the local tax at the place of destination. Transit passes are issued by which goods belonging to foreigners, though carried in native boats, are exempt from squeezing, but these passes can only be obtained by foreigners. "Since the law went into operation, many Chinese merchants have gone into partnership with foreigners; the former furnishing the capital and attending to all the business, while the latter obtain the transit passes and give the name to the firm. A gentleman whom we met in Shanghai is associated with some wealthy Chinese; they put in the money, and he furnishes his name and gets the passes, which none of them could do. "The native junks will always give a free passage to a foreigner who will pretend to own the cargo, since they can escape the squeeze if he plays his part successfully. The captain says that last year a sailor who wanted to join an English gun-boat at a place up the river was carried through for nothing by a junk whose cargo he pretended to own. He passed as a 'foreign merchant,' but the fact was he had never bought anything in his life more valuable than a suit of clothes, and had sold a great deal less than that. [Illustration: A NINE-STORIED PAGODA.]