Chapter i China EVER since the days when Marco Polo brought back to Europe the seeming fairy tales of the wonder land of the Far East, the country to which we have applied the name of China has been a field more and more attrac- tive for commercial conquest. At the close of the nineteenth century, when the ever-rising tide of industrial development has succeeded in sweeping over Europe, America, the better portion of Africa, Western Asia, and India, it is the Chinese Wall alone that resists its waves. The movement, however, is irresistible, and not even the exclusiveness of the Chinese and their extreme disinclination to change their ways will be a sufficient protection against it. The re- cent so-called "Boxer" outbreak will probably prove to be the death-knell to Chinese resist- ance. Whatever may be the outcome of this out- break, in so far as it affects the government or the political integrity of the country, it can be predicted with safety that the commercial and in- dustrial life of China will be revolutionized, and the beginning ol the twentieth century will be found to mark the dawning of a new era. The present moment, when we are about to pass from the old into the new state of things, is a 15