From The Times.

CENTENARY OF THE TIMES.

ON New Year's day, 1788, was published, in Printing House Square, the first number of the Times. There was little in the external surroundings of the event to mark the date as a memorable one. Two centuries earlier, the year 1588 had been recorded as an annus mirabilis, in which England was delivered from the peril of foreign invasion; one century earlier, another deliverance had rescued the nation from the thraldom of a selfish and unpatriotic despotism. But a hundred years ago, though the world was tottering on the edge of a tremendous cataclysm, statesmen and publicists were able to congratulate themselves on the state of Europe and even on the state of France. Louis XVI. was still firmly seated on his throne; the meeting of the States General was only the dream of a few advanced politicians; Pitt was a peace minister, with large and liberal views of fiscal and Parliamentary reform; and Napoleon was a young and obscure officer of artillery. We doubt whether the historian of the future will recognize in the annals of 1788 any event more noteworthy than the establishment of the Times. The career of this journal during the century that lies behind us forms, we are bold to say, no insignificant or inconspicuous part of the history of Great Britain. Our record extends far enough back to justify us in speaking on this point with a certain amount of freedom. The Times, as its founder described it, even before it assumed the name, was intended to be

watched; then her hull will be dark with | where else so present. Those who know evening shadow, whilst the light, like a most dare least in their desire to reprogolden veil lifted off her by an invisible duce. What other response is there for hand, slides upwards from one rounded the heart to make to the full recognition stretch of canvas to another, till, burning of the eye but the silence of adoration! for a breath like a streak of fire in the W. CLARK RUSSELL. dog-vane at the lofty masthead, it vanishes, and the structure floats gray as the ash of tobacco. In this withdrawal of the sun and in the gathering of the shadows of night at sea there is a certain melancholy; but I do not think it can be compared with the spirit of desolation you find in the breaking of the dawn over the ocean. The passage from sunlight to darkness even in the tropics is not so swift but that the mind so to speak has time to accept the change; but there is something in the cold, spiritless gray of dawn that always did and still does affect my spirits at sea. The froth of the running billows steals out ghastly to the faint, cheerless, and forbidding light. Chilly as the night may have been, a new edge of cold seems to have come into the air with the sifting of the melancholy spectral tinge of gray into the east. The light puts a hollow look into the face of the seaman. The aspect of his ship is full of bleakness; the stars are gone, the skies are cold, and the voices of the wind aloft are like a frosty whistling through clenched teeth. A mere fancy of course, which is instantly dissolved by the first level, sparkling beam of the rising sun; but then it is fancy that makes up the life of the sea, for without it what is the vocation but a dull routine of setting and furling sail, of masticating hard beef and pork, of slushing masts, washing decks, and polishing the brassworks! The spacious liquid arena is prodigal of inspiration and of delight to any one who shall carry imagination away with him on a voyage. There may be twenty different things to look at at once, and every one richer, sweeter, and more ennobling than the greatest of human poems to the heart that knows how to watch and receive. The shadow of a dark cloud over a ship, with the sunshine" uninfluenced by party, uncontrolled by streaming white in the clear blue foaming power, and attached solely to the public seas around; the vision of the iceberg at interest." To that ideal the conductors night, coloring the black atmosphere with of the paper have steadily adhered during a radiance of its own; the tropical blue of one hundred years thronged with changes the horizon, lifting into brassy brightness and chances, through all revolutions of to the central dazzle of the sun; the airy political power, of literary expression, and dyes of the evening over a ship in the far of popular taste. How remarkable the loneliness of the mid-ocean-scores of transformation is our readers may judge such sights there are, but what magic is for themselves by the extracts we print there in human pen to express them? this morning from the first few numbers The majesty of the Creator is nowhere so of the Times issued a century ago. Yet a apparent; the spirit of the universe is no-plain-dealing spirit of independence is

recognizable, we hope and believe, through and endurance of the nation during the every variation of circumstance and cos- long struggle with Napoleon, in furthering tume. We have fought for great causes, Pitt's policy of union with Ireland, in devictorious or vanquished; we have en- nouncing the slave-trade, in supporting deavored to represent, not unsuccessfully, the cause of Parliamentary reform, in adas we are proud to think, the solid sense, vocating the just claims of the Roman the steady patriotism, and the practical Catholics and the removal of Irish grievinstincts of the great body of the people of ances when those grievances were subthe United Kingdom, without distinction stantial, in opposing the disruptionist Irish of class. The Times has never been and policy begun by O'Connell, and revived by never will be the organ of a party, how- Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone, in conever triumphant, or the mouthpiece of a demning the fatuity of those who were political leader, however autocratic. We determined to uphold protection against are entitled to affirm that this attitude of the popular will, in curbing the frenzy of unfettered criticism has left its mark for the railway mania, in speaking out on good on the amazing development of the behalf of English opinion when Russian British nation during the past hundred or French aggression had to be faced, in years. The position of primacy in the exposing and censuring the departmental journalism of the world long since estab- blundering which led to the disasters of lished by the Times is acknowledged, not the Crimean campaign, the Times strove throughout the United Kingdom only, but ever and unflinchingly to do what seemed in foreign countries. In Europe, in Amer- to be its duty. It must be acknowledged, ica, in India and the colonies, the Times even by those who have differed from its is universally recognized as having a right policy, that its support or its opposition to speak in the name of England. That has always been an important factor in the high privilege, involving duties even movement of events. Yet though this higher, we may confidently assert will never be abused; but will be maintained, in accordance with the traditions of the paper, by the enterprise, the independence, and the resolution that have been crowned hitherto with success.

journal stood by Peel against both Whigs and Protectionists, and though at a later period it sustained Palmerston against Russell, Derby, Disraeli, Gladstone, and Cobden, it was never bound to the triumphal car of these great men, even when

Since the poet Cowper, in an oft-quoted they appeared to be the authentic expoverse, spoke of

The folio of four pages, happy work,
Which not even critics criticise,

66

the press has become a power-some
may even be inclined to say the greatest
power in the State. The British con-
stitution has gradually shifted its basis,
and now rests mainly, as acute observers
have pointed out, on government by dis-
cussion." Parliamentary debates are al-
most overshadowed by the controversies
conducted in the newspapers, or in
speeches which without the aid of the
newspapers might as well not be delivered
at all.
It was not unimportant, under
these conditions, that the tradition of hon-
orable independence, the paramount obli-
gations of national duty, the dignity of
public censorship, should have been main-
tained, as we trust the Times has always
been able to maintain them, against the
temptations of passing gain, of political
partisanship, or of social influences. It
has been the function of this journal, so
far as its conductors have from time to
time understood it, to express the prevail-
ing convictions of the best part of the Brit-
ish people. In stimulating the courage

nents for the time of the opinions of the middle classes of these kingdoms. Peel and Palmerston, though in the main they were regarded by the conductors of the Times as the best representatives of national conviction and sentiment, were criticised from time to time, when occasion arose, in our columns, as severely as Melbourne, Stanley, and Newcastle. The system of anonymity, which is sometimes ignorantly attacked, has been a main security for the power, exercised always in the public interest, of speaking the truth without fear or favor. A long succession of men of the highest distinction and of the most brilliant abilities—many of them not even known by name to the publichave, under these conditions, been able to contribute to the power and reputation of the Times, and in return to add infinitely to the weight and effect of their work on the opinion and the destinies of the nation. Nor, in a plain statement of historical facts, is it possible to omit a reference to the advantages derived by this journal from continuity of policy and conduct during the eventful years of the present century-advantages due to the steady, liberal, energetic, and sensible adminis

tration of its affairs since 1803 by the|ing the past century which have received son and the grandson of its founder.

a more generous recognition. Leaving on The progress achieved by the Times one side political questions, we can point since the era of the Napoleonic wars has, with unalloyed satisfaction to the duties no doubt, been largely the result of the we have discharged towards the public in contempt for patronage and favor shown safeguarding commercial and financial inwhen its conductors refused, not only to tegrity, at no little risk and cost. A tabaccept ministerial assistance, but even to let over the door of the printing-office in secure immunity against official obstruc- Printing House Square testifies to the grat tion, on terms in any way compromising itude of the merchants and bankers of the the independence of the paper. But there city of London for one service of this kind are material as well as moral conditions we were able to render to the cause of of success. We are justified in asserting honesty in business. So long as the Times that from the very outset the conductors retains its position in the ranks of the of the Times have been eager to try every newspaper press, its conductors will purnew method which could possibly be made sue the same course, disdaining the coarse available in the collection and the circula- arts of calumny and prurient gossip, and tion of news or in the various processes strictly respecting the sanctities of private of printing and publishing. We believe life, but attacking imposture, unveiling that in every one of the improvements fraud, and branding corrupt relations with which have made the newspaper press of crime, whether the world of trade or the the present day what it is, this journal has world of politics be the scene of the outled and shown the way to all its contem-rage upon law. While animated by this poraries. The employment, for the pur-resolve, we need entertain no fear that the poses of the press, of the railway and the Times will lose any part of its unique intelegraph, which the journals of some fluence, its wide authority, or its repregreat Continental capitals have scarcely sentative character. The position from as yet begun to use at all, was seized upon which we must not descend was once forcin the very infancy of those wonder-work- ibly depicted in the House of Commons ing changes for the development of the by a brilliant orator and versatile man of business of the Times. The uninstructed letters: "If I desired," he said, "to leave public can form no conception of the to remote posterity some memorial of examount of labor, the expenditure of mon-isting British civilization, I would prefer, ey, and the co-ordination of materials in- not our docks, not our railways, not our volved in the collection of the foreign and public buildings, not even the palace in domestic news published in our columns which we hold our sittings: I would preon any single day of the week. Further- fer a file of the Times."

From St. James's Gazette. THE EXPLOSION AT AMOY.

BY MISS GORDON-CUMMING.

more, there are mechanical developments with which a newspaper of the first rank ought to keep abreast; and in this respect the Times has been able to act as a pioneer for the press of the whole civilized world, mainly because the conductors of this journal have steadily refused from the very beginning to place their work PERHAPS the most picturesque and inand the immense interests involved in it teresting of the treaty ports in southern at the mercy of a selfish and exclusive China is the city of Amoy; a pleasant system of trade-unionism. The applica- halting-place for the traveller on his voytion of steam power to printing, the multi-age from Hong Kong to Foo-chow or plication of forms by stereotyping, the Shanghai, and the starting-point whence invention of the Walter press, and the to sail for the beautiful Isle of Formosa, introduction into practical use of compos- which is within six hours by steamer. It ing machines have been the most striking is a busy commercial seaport, on an successive steps in the direction of speed, island of the same name, and from time efficiency, and economy. The difficulties immemorial has been an important tradwith which every advance of the kind has ing centre. It was one of the first points had to contend cannot be appreciated by of commercial contact between China and the outer world, and, possibly, may not be the outer world. The Portuguese obacknowledged by those who have derived tained a footing here in the sixteenth cenequal benefit with ourselves from our vic- tury, and were succeeded by the Dutch. tory over them. Happily, there are por- In 1841 Amoy was captured by the Brittions of the work done by the Times dur-ish; and, by the Treaty of Nanking,

French and British subjects obtained the geomancers have declared to be in every right to settle on the island of Ku-lang-su, respect the most desirable resting-place which is only separated from Amoy by a for the person deceased. Some of the narrow strait. Thus, the foreign resi- shrines are niched in caves formed by dents enjoy the privilege of isolation from several great boulders which have fallen the vast and crowded city, with its popu- together in some awful convulsion of the lation of upwards of one hundred thousand hills. Others are furnished with stone Chinamen; and what that means those seats and tables, inviting to picnic parties. only who have lived in Chinese cities can One point of interest for an afternoon's exfully understand. The large luxurious pedition is a Buddhist monastery, perched foreign houses are scattered in the most on the hillside in this rock wilderness. pleasing manner amongst huge madder- Stately aloes seem specially to flourish in colored boulders and rock-masses, shaded the soil of decomposing granite, and are by clumps of feathery bamboo, and the thoroughly in keeping with their sur flowers or foliage of well-cultivated gar-roundings. dens in a semi-tropical climate. Naturally, Like most important Chinese cities, in the scorching summer droughts the Amoy is encircled by a mighty wall. The land does acquire a sickly yellow tone; summit of these walls invariably affords but in the cooler winter season the island the most agreeable walk available; it is is comparatively green, and here and the only place which is never crowded, there a vividly verdant hillside shows and here a good general view of the city where diligent husbandmen have laid out can he obtained. To most Europeans the their terraced rice-fields. Carriages and walls of Canton afford a general standard horses are here unknown, their place being of size. Those of Amoy are considerably filled by chairs and human bearers smaller, and in the city itself two feastrong, patient Chinamen; and boats are tures conspicuous in Canton are lacking: ever ready to carry those whose business namely, the tall pagodas, and the great requires their presence to the busy city, square towers which are the much-frewhich rises so picturesquely on the fur- quented pawn-shops. Descending from ther shore of the narrow blue strait. To the walls, one immediately enters a labythe left lies the harbor; crowded with rinth of dirty streets and markets with quaint native junks, wonderful alike in bewildering crowds forever hurrying to form and color; and a great assemblage and fro-a thousand details of interest of boat-houses, wherein an incredible num- arresting one's attention at every turn. ber of human beings contrive to exist in a much more decent and cleanly way than their neighbors in the streets. On an average, about one thousand foreign sels annually clear this port.

The excellence of the fish supply must strike the most casual observer. Both river and sea fish, salt and fresh, are conves-spicuous by their abundance, as is also the supply of bamboo oysters, so called because they are artificially bred on this coast, where bamboo oyster-fields are prepared more carefully than any hop-field or vineyard. Holes are bored in old oystershells, which are then stuck into pieces of split bamboo about two feet in length. These are planted close together on sandflats between high and low water-mark, where strong tidal currents are said to bring the oyster spat. Certainly, the said spat is soon found adhering to the old shells, which in due time are covered with tiny oysters. The bamboos are then transplanted and set several inches apart; and within six months from the date when they were first planted they yield a crop of well-grown oysters ready for the market. Nor are even the shells wasted; for though Chinamen have learned to appreciate the luxury of transparent glass, a large number of oyster-shells are still scraped down till they are so thin as to be translucent, when, neatly fitted together

As seen from the houses of the foreign residents, the island of Amoy is strikingly picturesque. Though the high, steep hills are in themselves parched and barren ranges of disintegrated granite, they are strewn in every direction with gigantic boulders of the aforesaid dark-red rock, which seem as if they could only have dropped from the clouds; though here and there a rocky ridge crops up, cresting the sky-line. One such ridge divides the town itself, and is strongly fortified, heavy guns commanding the estuary where lie so many trading-vessels. Very irregular streets run in and out among the great boulders along the shore, where junks lie stranded, and fine old trees overshadow shrines and temples and nameless graves; the latter being chosen here and there, according to Chinese notions of good luck. Weary indeed must be the bearers who toil up some of these hill-paths, bearing the dead to some high spot which the

(like the diamond panes in the casements of our ancestors), they form the ornamental windows in the inner courts of rich men's houses.

stunned; and then there rose from the city the cries of maimed and terrified human beings in extremity of torture, and of wild wailing for the dead. The powdermagazine, in which forty thousand kilogrammes of gunpowder were stored, had exploded, fifty soldiers had been blown to atoms, and several hundred other persons had been killed and a multitude griev ously injured. All the buildings on that side of the town were shattered, and as houses fell fire was scattered. A great conflagration speedily ensued, rapidly spreading till it extended over a fourth of the whole area of the town.

One of the special industries of Amoy is the manufacture of pretty fanciful little objects in silk crape for the adornment of ladies' heads. Realistic flowers are not in favor; these are the accepted equivalent of them; and few are so poor that they cannot find a coin to invest in these pretty trifles. Artificial flowers are here made solely as offerings to the imperial dead; for, strange to say, the custom of scattering flowers on graves is in China a privilege reserved only for the family of the As yet few details have reached Euemperor, and artificial flowers are pre- rope; but the simple outline of the story ferred to real ones for the purpose. None is sufficiently appalling, and must give save members of the imperial house dare great anxiety to many Europeans whose use flowers to decorate the tombs of their friends work chiefly within the city. dead; nobles and commoners alike must Amoy is not only a great emporium of be content to offer ornaments of red-and-commerce; it is also an important centre white paper. As a matter of course, any for mission work; the Island of Amoy, one wandering through a Chinese city which is about ten miles in diameter, being enters temples innumerable; for, though dotted all over with villages and townlets, for by far the most part they are amazingly so that its total population is estimated at dirty, there are generally some distinctive about two hundred and fifty thousand. features of interest to be noted. Among these I may mention a fine image of Kwan-yin, the thousand-armed goddess of mercy; the special feature being that the great golden halo within which she stands is (or was) formed of a thousand golden

hands.

Chief among the lions of Amoy must rank the citadel, where a large body of Chinese soldiers are wont to lounge about in delightfully quaint groups, eminently suggestive of burlesques and pantomimes; some being armed with bows and arrows, some with spears, while others only carry small ornamental banners on tall flagstaffs. Some, indeed, carry rifles of remarkable length; but the majority of the firearms to be seen consist of old flint-lock guns more likely to damage the bearer than his opponent. These poor soldiers have just had an appallingly real experience of the dangers of the ammunition which their rulers have been so zealously accumulating at various points of possible invasion. Six weeks ago, on the 21st of November, the foreign residents on Ku-lang-su were going peacefully about their avocations, when suddenly a deafening roar rent the air, and a dense volume of smoke was seen to rise over a powder-magazine on the main isle. So terrific was the concussion that Ku-lang-su itself rocked as if convulsed by an earthquake, and several houses fell in ruins. The noise was followed by the momentary hush of a people wellnigh

This port, having been one of the first to tolerate foreigners, seemed to offer possibilities for the establishment of Christian missions, which at first met with the very poor results common in this most conservative empire. Thirty years ago the Amoy missions could only number twenty converts. But these, as usual, in China, have proved the nucleus round which many more have clustered; and to-day the three principal missionary bodies (the London Mission, the English Presbyterian, and the American Methodist Episcopal) number upwards of three thousand communicants, with a very much larger number of persons receiving Christian teaching.

From Nature.

CHRISTMAS ISLAND.

PROFESSOR NEWTON sends us the folhim from Mr. J. J. Lister, M.A., St. John's lowing extracts from a letter received by College, Cambridge, the naturalist on rich, R.N., describing the recent visit to board H.M.S. Egeria, Commander Aldthat little-known island:

"We left Batavia on Tuesday, September 27, about 5 A.M., and were in the Straits of Sunda by the afternoon. We saw the hills on the Java side clearly,