manifestly these people are our own blood relations. Let us look charitably now upon a certain very serious obstacle which lies in the way of their sudden acceptance of a great railroad system. Let us remember that China is one colossal graveyard—a mighty empire so knobbed all over with graves that the level spaces left are hardly more than alleys and avenues among the clustering death-mounds. Animals graze upon the grass-clad graves (for all things are made useful in China), and the spaces between are carefully and industriously cultivated. These graves are as precious as their own blood to the Chinese, for they worship their dead as ancestors. The first railroad that plows its pitiless way through these myriads of sacred hillocks will carry dismay and distress into countless households. The railways must be built, though. We respect the griefs of the poor country people, but still the railways must be built. They will tear heartstrings out by the roots, but they lead to the sources of unimaginable wealth, and they must be built. These old prejudices must and can be eradicated—just as they were in Massachusetts. With such encouragement from foreigners, and such guaranties of good will and just intent as Article 8 offers by simply agreeing that China may transact her own private business unmolested by meddlesome interference, the Emperor will cheerfully begin to open up his country with roads and telegraphs. It seems a simple thing and an easy one to accord to a man such manifest and indisputable rights, but beyond all doubt this assurance is what China craves most. Article 8, indorsed by all the Western powers, would unlock the riches of 400,000,000 of Chinese subjects to the world. Hence, to all parties concerned, it is perhaps, the important clause of the treaty. That China is anxious to build railways is shown in the fact that by the latest news from there, just officially enunciated to our State Department, it appears that the Viceroy of the three chief provinces of the Empire is about to begin a railroad from Suchow to Shanghai—80 miles—or, at least, has the project under serious consideration. The new treaty with America will tend to strengthen and encourage him in his design.

This is the broadest, most unselfish, and most catholic treaty yet framed by man, perhaps. There is nothing mean, or exacting, or unworthy in any of its provisions. It freely offers every privilege, every benefit, and every concession the most grasping suitor could demand, to a nation accustomed for generations to understand a "treaty" as being a contrivance whose province was to extort as many "advantages" as possible and give as few as possible in return. The only "advantage" to the United States perceptible on the face of the document, perhaps, is the advantage of having dealt justly and generously by a neighbor and done it in a cordial spirit. It is something to have done right—a species of sentiment seldom considered in treaties. In ratifying this treaty the Senate of the United States did themselves high credit, and all the more so that they did it with such alacrity and such heartiness. This is a treaty with no specific advantages noted in it; it is simply the first great step toward throwing all China open to the world, by showing toward her a spirit which invites her esteem and her confidence instead of her customary curses. There is nothing in it about China ceding to us the navigation of an ocean in return for the navigation of a creek; nor the monopoly of silk for a monopoly of beeswax; nor a whaling-ground in return for a sardine-fishery. Yet it is a treaty which is full of "advantages." It is more full of them than is any other treaty, but they are meted out with an even hand to all—to China upon the one hand, and to the world upon the other. It looks to the opening up, in China, of a vast and lucrative commerce with the world, and of which America will have only her just share, nothing more. It looks to the lifting up of a mighty nation and conferring upon it the boon of a purer religion and of a higher and better civilization than it has known before. It is a treaty made in the broad interests of justice, enlightenment, and progress, and therefore it must stand. It bridges the Pacific, it breaks down the Tartar wall, it inspires with fresh young blood the energies of the most venerable of the nations. It acquires a grand field for capital, labor, research, enterprise—confers science, mechanics, social and political advancement, Christianity. Is it not enough?

Mark Twain.