The population of Tientsin is supposed to be about 400,000, residing chiefly in the suburbs, for trade is generally carried on without the walls, not only here, but in all Chinese cities. There is an unusually large proportion of beggars about Tientsin, and loathsome objects they are, as they whine about the streets, half clad, in tatters, starved, and often covered with sores. They never sleep but on the ground. At night, when the streets are quiet, the beggars may be discovered huddled together at every corner and on every door-step. Begging is an institution in China, and to qualify for the craft, men have been said to burn out their own eyes, in order to excite compassion for their blindness. A Chinese householder seldom allows a beggar to go away empty. Charity is cheap; a handful of rice, one copper cash, value the fourth part of a farthing, suffices to induce the disgusting object to move on to the next shop. The beggars have seldom any cause to starve in China, but they do very often, and it is probable they bring diseases on themselves in their efforts to excite pity, which carry them off very rapidly. In winter, especially in the north, they seem to die off like mosquitoes, and no one takes any notice of them except to bury them--for the Chinese don't like to leave dead bodies about the streets. In spring they reappear--not the identical beggars, certainly--but very similar ones, and the ranks of the profession are kept filled. The wealthier natives of Tientsin, traders and shopkeepers, are fond of good living and gambling. They are robust people, and bear up well against the effects of late hours and gross dissipation. The close, filthy atmosphere in which they live and breathe does not seem to injure their health. Epidemics do make great havoc among them occasionally; one year it is cholera, another year it is small-pox; but the general healthiness of the people does not seem to suffer. The climate is exceedingly dry. Little rain or snow falls; but when it does rain, the whole heavens seem to fall at once, not in torrents, but in sheets of water. The peculiar sand-storms, so common in the north of China, have not as yet been satisfactorily investigated. They often come on after a sultry day. A yellow haze appears in the sky, darkening the sun; then columns of fine dust are seen spinning round in whirlwinds. At that stage every living thing seeks shelter, and those who are afield are lucky if they are not caught in the blinding storm before they reach their houses. But even a closely shut-up house affords but half protection, for the fine powdery dust insinuates itself through the crevices of doors and windows, and is palpably present in your soup and your bread for some time after. The most obvious source whence these sand-storms come, is the great sandy desert of Mongolia, but such an hypothesis is hardly sufficient to account for all the phenomena which accompany the sand-storms. It has been supposed that