The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-04-03
"THE HEATHEN CHINEE."
Some Interesting Facts about China.
The heather Chinee! Why do we
i've him such disparaging epithet?

He lives in one room of tenement
shanty, with twenty others as nasty as him.
self. He has bad, fishy smell. AS to
morality, he makes himself tipsy with
opium, and-look at his joss-house."
The real offense of the Chinese is that
he cheapens labor. The ostensible Of
fense is that his paganism engenders vices
which make him demoralizing element
of society. His weakness consists in
this, that he has no vote.
But there is something more important
than vulgar outcry. Many highly re-
spectacle persons, who would not will
fully do him any injury, are from usage
unable to speak of him except in obnox.
ious terms. A very enlightened and
liberal body, the Chamber of Commerce
of New York, in its address to the Presi-
dent asking him to withhold his sigma
ture to the anti Chinese Bill, speaks of
China as the "heathen empire"
Then, as we all know very well, our
popular poets have not spared him. In
stanzas of no uncertain merit he figures
under his accustomed name as cheat at
cards.
The Amaiman cuts off a cows tail,
dries it, hangs it up on a peg, and then
falls down and worships it as goddess.
That is heathenism, paganism: But that
is not what Chinaman would do.
Has this people contributed any thing
to the advancement of civilization? ?
Has it conferred any benefits on man
kind? All nations without exception
must submit to be tried by that test. In
answer to these questions, directed to the
Chinese, we shall find measure of our
obligations to them-of the courteous
treatment they are entitled to demand at
our hands.
Through how many years of slowly
advancing civilization must China have
passed, how great must her social neces.
sites have become, before she reached
her invention of printing from wooden
blocks, and its necessary requisites, the
manufacture of paper and of suitable
ink. Yet these she had accomplished
thousand years before our era How
much industry and ingenuity must
she have expended before she
had learned to make steel into thin
strips, to temper and to impart the mag
netic virtue to it by touching it in a GER
tain way with loadstone! What
momentous consequences have happened
to the world by her detection of polarity
in a strip so touchedl In the hands of
Columbus it led to two great discoveries
that of the West India Island and that
of the line Of no magnetic variation.
Without the former there would not
have have been any United States whose
back-door is now slammed in the faces
of those who helped to find the way to its
front-door. AS to the latter, did it not
in consequence of the bull of Pope Alex
ander VI.-one of the most important
bulls ever issued-lead to the south
route to India by way of the Cape of
Good Hope? Did it not cause the great
industrial revolution that changed the
commercial front of Europe from the
Mediterranean to the Atlantic }? Above
all, when Magellan accomplished the cir
cumnavigation of the earth, did it not
settle forever the greatest of geographic
al problems? Nobody after that denied
that the earth is globe. Does not her
discovery of the Temporary magnetism OF
soft iron rest at the basis of many of our
most brilliant modern inventions?
Without it where would be our dynamo
electric machines, our Gramms, our
Ruhmkorf coils, our expectation of elec-
trio illumination? What was it that
sustained Oersted in all the disappoint-
ments that for twenty years preceded bis
capital discovery of electro-magnetism,
one of the glories of this century, but
this, that the law of magnetic attractions
and repulsion is the same as that for
electricity The one is due to the Chi
nese, the other to the French.
We must count among the most i'm
portant of Chinese inventions that Of
gunpowder. They studied very thor
oughly the chemical qualities of sulphur
charcoal, nitre, and this mixture of
them. They did not care to apply it to
warlike uses, but exhausted their skill
in its pyrotechnic display. Their fire.
works are the finest in the world. A
good Jesuit tells US how he saw with
astonishment q trellis of red grapes,
green leaves, and the wood of the trellis
represented in fire. We have no works of
the kind which they do not surpass.
Nor should their reluctance to apply
this invention to warlike uses excite our
surprise. They constitute an immense
pacific population, which has lost the
instinct of conquest The young Ameri-
can should remember with gratitude how
effectual they enable him to celebrate the
birthday anniversary of his nation.
They excel in the art of dyeing, the
making of colors, the manufacture Of
splendid pigments from carthamus, in
digo, the preparation of sugar. Their
bells, such as the great bell Of Pekin, are
among the grandest triumphs of casting.
In the working of metals they possess
many secrets. Their magic mirrors,
which show by reflection OF sun rays
from their polished front the images of
their rough back, are at this moment
objects Of curiosity and disputation in
London.
Let us not forget their porcelain. Can
it ever be surpassed in purity, delicacy,
beauty? Well might the Romans prize
these murrhine cups at many times their
weight of gold.
1t wonld be in vain for me to attempt
any adequate statement of their contri-
butious to industrial art. Of all people
they see quickest the practical side of a
fact. We have no hydraulic construc-
tions as imposing as the Chinese canal
system. 1t rivals our railway system.
We have no Artesian wells that exceed
in depth some of theirs. We have no
fortifcations as extensive as the Chinese
wall.
Well, but, says somebody, what about
mechanical engineering? Where is
their steam-engine, their locomotive?
China has been driven by the emer-
gencies of her political condition to dis
courage labor-saving inventions. TWAS
not for her to do any thing that might
deprive her enormous population of
work. Wherever force was required, she
had plenty of hands; the genius of her
people gave her plenty Of patience.
uor pococsitioa of internOmmunicatiOn