The principal part of the provisions required for the supply of this immense city comes from the southern provinces, and from flocks reared beyond the wall. It has no important manufactures, horn lanterns, wall papers, stone snuff-bottles, and pipe mouth-pieces, being the principal. Trade in silks, foreign fabrics, and food is limited to supplying the local demand, inasmuch as a heavy octroi duty at the gates restrains all enterprise. No foreign merchants are allowed to carry on business here. The government of Peking differs from that of other cities in the empire, the affairs of the department being separated from it, and administered by officers residing in the four circuits into which it is divided. “A minister of one of the Boards is appointed superintendent of the city, and subordinate to him is a _fuyin_, or mayor. Their duties consist in having charge of the metropolitan domain, for the purpose of extending good government to its four divisions. They have under them two district magistrates, each of whom rules half the city; none of these officers are subordinate to the provincial governor, but carry affairs which they cannot determine to the Emperor. They preside or assist at many of the festivals observed in the capital, superintend the military police, and hold the courts which take cognizance of the offences committed there.”[35] ~STREET SCENES AND FEATURES OF PEKING.~ The thoroughfares leading across Peking, from one gate to the other, are broad, unpaved avenues, more than a hundred feet wide, which appear still wider owing to the lowness of the buildings; the centre is about two feet higher than the sides. The cross-streets in the main city are generally at right angles with them, not over forty feet wide, and for the most part occupied with dwellings. The inhabitants of the avenues are required to keep them well sprinkled in summer; but in rainy weather they are almost impassable from the mud and deep puddles, the level surface of the ground, and obstructed, neglected drains, preventing rapid drainage. The crowds which throng these avenues, some engaged in various callings, along the sides or in the middle of the way, and others busily passing and repassing, together with the gay appearance of the sign-boards, and an air of business in the shops, render the great streets of the Chinese metropolis very bustling, and to a foreigner a most interesting scene. Shop-fronts can be entirely opened when necessary; they are constructed of panels or shutters fitting into grooves, and secured to a row of strong posts which set into mortises. At night, when the shop is closed, nothing of it is seen from without; but in the daytime, when the goods are exposed, the scene becomes more animated.