[Illustration:  CHINESE PUNISHMENT.]

Railways will naturally follow the steamboat, and an English company is now arranging to supply the Chinese with a railway-system to connect the principal cities, and especially to tap the interior districts, where the water communications are limited.  There is no regular system of mail-communication in China; the Government transmits intelligence by means of couriers, and when merchants have occasion to communicate with persons at a distance they use private expresses.  Foreign and native merchants, doing an extensive business, keep swift steamers, which they use as despatch-boats, and sometimes send them at heavy expense to transmit single messages.  It has happened that, on a sudden change of markets, two or more houses in Hong Kong or Shanghae have despatched boats at the same moment; and some interesting and exciting races are recorded in the local histories.

The barriers of Chinese exclusion were broken down when the treaties of the past ten years opened the empire to foreigners, and placed the name of China on the list of diplomatic and treaty powers.  The last stone of the wall that shut the nation from the outer world was overthrown when the court at Pekin sent an embassy, headed by a distinguished American, to visit the capitals of the Western nations, and cement the bonds of friendship between the West and the East.  It was eminently fitting that an American should be selected as the head of this embassy, and eminently fitting, too, that the ambassador of the oldest nation should first visit the youngest of all the great powers of the world.  America, just emerged from the garments of childhood, and with full pride and consciousness of its youthful strength, presents to ruddy England, smiling France, and the other members of the family of nations, graybeard and dignified China, who expresses joy at the introduction, and hopes for a better acquaintance in the years that are to come.

During his residence at Pekin, Mr. Burlingame interested himself in endeavoring to introduce the telegraph into China, and though meeting with opposition on account of certain superstitions of the Chinese, he was ultimately successful.  The Chinese do not understand the working of the telegraph—­at least the great majority of them do not—­and like many other people elsewhere, with regard to any thing incomprehensible, they are inclined to ascribe it to a satanic origin.  In California, the Chinese residents make a liberal use of the telegraph; though they do not trouble themselves with an investigation of its workings, they fully appreciate its importance.  John, in California, is at liberty to send his messages in “pigeon-English,” and very funny work he makes of it occasionally.  Chin Lung, in Sacramento, telegraphs to Ming Yup, in San Francisco, “You me send one piecee me trunk,” which means, in plain language, “Send me my trunk.”  Mr. Yup complies with the request, and responds by