Page 325 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

311.

than real. No lists of membership for specific societies were

published, only the officers and those who attended the society•s

annual meeting. No more than twenty residents, including

missionaries, ever were present at these meetings. The one

society that boasted of its membership, the Society for the

Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, announced a total of forty-seven

members, cf. which eighteen were classified as honorary or cor-

responding, in 1835, and eighty members in 1838. This repre­

sented less than one-third of the roughly two hundred and
40
fifty foreign residents at Canton during these years. The

amount of money in the societies• treasuries was correspondingly

low, especially when compared to the profits which merchants
41
sent home each year.

Although merchants filled the major official positions

in all the philanthropic societies, missionaries actually ad­

ministered the societies• functions between annual meetings.

The officers were merely titular heads who presided at the

infrequent gatherings. Interestingly, the same small group of

merchants served as officers for all three societies. They

invariably represented the major mercantile establishments at

40
chinese Repository, IV, 8 (December 1835), 361; VII,
8 (December 1838), 410. The estimate of the foreign population at
Canton during this period is based on census reports in the
Repository for 1836 and 1840. No censuses were published for the
years 1837-39. V, 9 (January 1837), 426-29; X, 1 (January 1841),
58-60. This number does not include Portugese residents, who
could not reside at Canton.
41
For example, the Chinese Repository, IV, 8 (December
1835), 361, published the financial report of the Society for the
Diffusion of Knowledge for 1835. The subscriptions amounted to
$925. Spread over the thirty resident members, the average donation
would be about thirty dollars.