Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/743

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TRADE CORPORATIONS IN CHINA.
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ince. Those who are of the same local origin, on the other hand, stand by one another. Hence it has come to pass that some trades have been monopolized by the people of some one province. Most of the bankers were originally from Chan-Si; all the great merchants came from Anhoei. The people of Chan-tung have three special occupations in Peking. They have the exclusive privilege of killing pigs and retailing meat. They are the only water carriers, each one having his well on the public highway, his watering place for horses and mules, and his district where he sells water without permitting the people to provide for themselves elsewhere. Such privileges are consecrated by usage and zealously defended by their holders, and respect for them is enforced, when necessary, by the authorities. Associations are formed, also, even among the coolies who work on the docks.

These details show by how great a variety of forms all the corporations assure the same result—the organization of labor. We see also how they extend beyond commerce. The Chinaman is in fact a social being bound closely to his fellows—of the family, province, trade, or class—by every tie and in every sphere of life. He is never a man living by himself and for himself, and is not accustomed to independence. Hence the authority of the corporation, instead of seeming strange, is a necessity to him. Consequently the corporation has the right, by universal consent, to exact obedience from its members, and to compel those who would stay out to come into it.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes.



M. L. Azoulay suggests, in the Revue Scientifique, that the invitation given to Señor Rámon y Cajal, the celebrated Spanish neurologist, to visit the United States and attend the celebration of the tenth anniversary of Clark University, furnishes a good example for France to follow. "It causes grievous chagrin to me to think," he says, "that while Germany, England, Austria, Switzerland, and the United States are regularly accustomed to invite to their scientific ceremonials, of which there are more than one every year, students of other countries who have illustrated any branch of human knowledge, France, formerly so hospitable, refuses these international appeals."}}

At the recent meeting of the British Archæological Association, at Buxton, Dr. Brushfield described the prehistoric circle of Arbor Low as, upon evidence which he cited, the earliest neolithic monument in Britain. There are thirty-two stones in the circle, all now lying prostrate, but they must originally have been erect. The dolmen in the center is now level with the ground. The mound and ditch—the latter being inside, between the mound and the stone circle—are in a very perfect condition, notwithstanding the lapse of time. The work has two openings—on the northeast and southwest.