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Show THE DIFFICULTY OF BUILDING A RAILWAY IN CHINA. Foitignera hold land in C.iina by troaty stipulations, under titledeeds, in both Chinese and Engiiah, registered regis-tered at a consulate, usually, but by no means necessarily, that of the nation to wh eh the owner belongs. This tit'e is in the nature of a perpetual per-petual lease. Could euch title be obtained ob-tained for a atrip of land embracing iho old road, it seemed reasonable to attsume that if there were interference interfer-ence with ar.y construction there upon, the tenure of every hung and other piece of real tatnta in Shanghai would be affected, and the railroad projectors would have the whole community at their bi-.k. Purchases Pur-chases were therefore cautiout-ly b:i gun and carried cn, and registry obtained, not in tue British or United States consulate where alt?nln would be LLlracted to it, but in a continental con-tinental bureau. Of course there wre numerous and troublesome obstacle. ob-stacle. 6ucb aa are nut unkujvn in Western lands. Fanneis claimed many Units the value ol their holdings for email cornersjold women ut horrible up pact, aud mistresses of the choicest Chinese: biliiDgsgate cursed the engineer and interpreter by tueir god?, and vowed that Confucius himself shou.d not have an iota of their patrimony; and the defunct natives gave the mosi trouble of all. H should on tUted ! that in this tavored l.n.d the rude turefatheia of the hamlet wDO have derailed thia life are di-posed of in euudry aLd promiscuous pro-miscuous ways, according, apparently, to the means or caprice cf their Iriend?, Some are interred; others, packed in buxea, are deposited in tht tit Us; and others, ;gtiu, p lived in barrel-like ear. bern receptacle (nap pily describid by a BiiiUb officer a "jara of potted ancestors, by Jjvt-I you, know.") When it came lu distuibiug these, oppGtitiou culmiuah-d, as the ideas O' buyers anU sellers differed ma'c-rUlly aa to trie market value ol "pntttd aoceotors," and a crisis booh came "Ven zey 'iss me," sys the poor Freuch actor, "I do not mind 'im mooch ; but ven it coora to zpi or-in-ge-pccl, c'tsl autre chose!" So when acolding old worn- n were re-entorced by barbaric hord's, wth unlifted boea and Bhovt'ls, ti e pur-1 veying party retreated in g-.-r d ekir-; miehing order, and reported at head quarters. A. A. Hayes, in Harper's Magazine for December. 1 |