TWO:"One good thing about going on a shopping excursion in Canton is that most of the establishments for the sale of different articles are grouped together, just as they are said to be in the bazaars of Cairo and Damascus. Thus we find most of the silk-dealers in Silk Street, those who sell mirrors and similar work are in Looking-glass Street, and the workers in ivory are in a street by themselves. Then there is Curiosity Street (or Curio Street, as it is generally called), where you can buy all sorts of odds and ends of things, old and new, which come under the head of Chinese curiosities. Lacquered ware and porcelain have their especial quarters; and so when you are in the region of any particular trade, you do not have to walk about much to make your purchases. In the vicinity of the river there are several large concerns where they have a general assortment of goods, and you may buy lacquer and porcelain, silk and ivory, and nearly everything else that is produced in Canton, under one roof.
TWO:At the station in Yokohama the boys found a news-stand, the same as they might find one in a station in America, but with the difference against them that they were unable to read the papers that were sold there. They bought some, however, to send home as curiosities, and found them very cheap. Newspapers existed in Japan before the foreigners went there; but since the advent of the latter the number of publications has increased, as the Japanese can hardly fail to observe the great influence on public opinion which is exercised by the daily press. They have introduced metal types after the foreign system, instead of printing from wooden blocks, as they formerly did, and, but for the difference in the character, one of their sheets might be taken for a paper printed in Europe or America. Some of the papers have large circulations, and the newsboys sell them in the streets, in the same way as the urchins of New[Pg 103] York engage in the kindred business. There is this difference, however, that the Japanese newsboys are generally men, and as they walk along they read in a monotonous tone the news which the paper they are selling contains.
