Pictures of Southern China. By the Rev. J. Macgowan. (R.T.S.
10s. 6d.)—Mr. Macgowan devotes chapters to Shanghai, Foochow, Kushan, Amoy, Swatow, Hong-kong, and Canton. And he certainly succeeds by the help of some admirable photographs in giving us some vivid pictures of Chinese and Anglo-Chinese life. He is descriptive rather than critical, and is content, for the most part, to deal with the surface of things. But he has not failed to look below, and now and then he has some serious discourse of what is to be seen there. In the Amoy chapter, for instance, there is a remarkable account of geomancy, the Chinese Fung-shuy, a superstition which, we are told, is " a positive curse to the whole nation." Imagine what would have been the result to England if it had been forbidden to touch the great coalfields for fear of disturbing some mysterious power which might have brought trouble on the country. It is in this same chapter that Mr. Macgowan gives us some statistics of the growth of Christianity which have a distinctly hopeful look. Self-supporting native churches are a proof which cannot be gainsaid.
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