The straightened streets are always crowded and give the traveler the impression of a high density and an enormous population. But the buildings are chiefly one story in height, and, with the exception of Peking, Chinese cities cover no very great area. For literary effect their population has been recklessly exaggerated, and, in the absence of reliable statistics, every traveler has felt at liberty to adopt the highest guess. Until recently there was no force in the cities to maintain public order. Now, khaki-clad policemen, club in hand, patrol the streets, but their efficiency in time of tumult is by no means vindicated. A slouching, bare-foot, mild-faced _gendarme_ such as you see in Canton is by no means an awe-inspiring embodiment of the majesty of the law. There is no common supply of water. When a city lies by a river the raw river water is borne about to the house by regular water-carriers, and the livelong day the river-stairs are wet from the drip of buckets. When the water is too thick it is partially clarified by stirring it with a perforated joint of bamboo containing some piece of alum. There is no public lighting, and after nightfall the streets are dark, forbidding, and little frequented. Until kerosene began to penetrate the Empire the common source of light was a candle in a paper lantern or cotton wick lighted in an open cup of peanut oil. Owing to the lack of a good illuminant the bulk of the people retire with the fowls and rise with the sun. By making the evening of some account for reading or for family intercourse, kerosene has been a great boon to domestic life. Fuel is scarce and is sold in neat bundles of kindling size. Down the West River ply innumerable boats corded high with firewood floating down to Canton and Hong Kong. Higher and higher the tree destruction extends, and farther and farther does the axman work his way from the waterways. Chaff and straw, twigs and leaves and litter are burned in the big brick bedsteads that warm the sleepers on winter nights, and under the big, shallow copper vessels set in the low brick or mud stoves. Fuel is economized and household economy simplified among the poor by the custom of relying largely on the food cooked and vended in the street. The portable restaurant is in high favor, for our prejudice against food cooked outside the home is a luxury the common people cannot afford to indulge in.