Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

CHINESE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
Extracts from Sir G. Staunton's "Authentic account of an Embassy to China,"
The Chinese are, perhaps, upon an average better able to support moderate labour with little intermission than many of the lower classes in Europe. They are bred in better and sounder habits, and continue longer under the direction of their parents. They are for the most part sober; they marry early; they are less exposed to the temptations of debauchery; are less liable to contract diseases which corrupt the spring of life; their lives are more regular and uniform. It has been calculated, upon the authority of facts and observations, that notwithstanding the baneful luxuries in which the European rich indulge, the disorders of repletion, inactivity and vice, to which they are subjects, the mean duration of their lives exceeds about ten years that of their inferiors, whom excessive fatigue had contributed to wear out before their time; whom poverty had deprived of those means of proportional comfort and subsistence; who are more exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, and accidents of life; and less guarded against their effects. as well as more liable to disease, with less leisure or means for care.
The Chinese have no Sunday, nor even such a division as a week. The temples are, however, open every day for the visits of devotees. Persons of that description have, from time to time, made grants, though to no great amount, for the maintenance of their Clergy, but no lands are subject to ecclesiastical tithes. A land-tax to government has been substituted in the last reign, to a poll-tax, as better proportioned to the faculties of individuals. Most imports, and all luxuries, are likewise taxed; but the duty being added to the original price of the articles, is seldom distinguished from it by the consumer. A transit duty is laid likewise on goods passing from one province to another. Each province in China, which may be compared to an European kingdom, is noted chiefly for the production of some particular article, the conveyance of which to supply the demand for in the other, raises this duty to a considerable sum, and forms the great internal commerce of the empire.
Presents from the tributaries and subjects of the Emperor and the confiscations of opulent criminals, are not overlooked in enumerating the resources of the public treasury. Taxes, such as upon rice, are received in kind. The several species of grain, on which many of the poorer classes of the people principally subsist, are exempted from taxation; so is wheat, to which rice is always preferred.
The population of China, as estimated by Sir George Staunton at 333 millions, is considerably more than twice that of the whole of Europe, and more than three-eighths of that of the whole earth, according to the following statement, which has been deemed tolerably correct.
Total,
884,600,000
The Chinese wall, which is nearly 1500 miles long, (1200 of which are finished passes over a ridge of mountains which in one place wants but 75 feet of being a mile high. Both sides of which being now tributary, to the Emperor, no longer excites any wonder in the country.

Africa,	450,000,000
America,	150,000,000
Europe,	160,000,000
	124,600,000