The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1879-10-17
lNew York Evening Post,

dress Is the hides of beasts. He has no
books or literature. His food Is of tho
coarsest sort, and he knows as little of
cookery as of art, science or agriculture.
The Chinese, on the other hand, have
q civilization so old that when our fore
fathers were living as the red Indian
now lives they were polite aud al
vanced nation. Long before Europe
had dreamed of the mariners compass,
of gunpowder or of printing, they were
known and used ON the banks of tho
Yangtse and the Hoang. Books, arch
itecture, chemistry aud navigation
were more or less familiar to this sin
gular people for ages before Julius
Caesar was heard of, or before the tribes
who made tho civilization of Western
Europe had wandered from tho fast
uesses Of the Caucasus. These facts,
standing alone, arc sufficiently clo-
quent and suggestive. They need no
commentary.
But although these facts arc gener-
ally known, 1t is commonly supposed
that they end there, and that tho Chi
nese of our own day are totally unpro-
gresslve. That the suppositton Is in-
accurate some news just at hand clearly
shows, and may be added to other al
ready cited reasons for treating tho
Chinese with respect and consideration.
A Chinese war feet has been gathered
1mr&ha Xangtse with the imputed pur-
pose of takfng~4art In the expected
hostilities with JAPAN The usual no.
ton of q Chinese feet Is that, of Il
crowd of clumsy juuks which u tiny
gunboat could scatter like chaff and 4
single rified cannon dispose of as u
shotgun does of n covey Of ducks. 1t
may excite some surprise to know how
opposite to this notion Is the reality.
The fleet consists of steamships having
competent commanders and engineers
and being otherwise efficiently manned.
Their armament includes Krupp, Whit
worth and Armstrong guns. proba-
bly, neither the vessels nor their bat
teries will prove as formidable as they
might be In Caucasian hands; but that
tho Chinese should have such Il fleet ut
all is q remarkable sign of the times.
There are other facts ut hand which
| show that the Celestial empire is by no
means standing still. An Imperial de-
cree has just been issued directing that
pccuniary aid shall be given to an in
ventive person named Tung Yu-chI,
who has given reason to believe that
he can propei steam vessels without
the use of fire. The same individual
thinks that ne sees his way to invent
ing perpetual motion, so that perhaps
he is destined to bestow less upon tho
world than In the absence of such II
pretension might be hoped for. Still,
tho interest in scientific progress that
| Is implied by both circumstances makes,
so far as 1t goes, against the existence
of that uniform inertness populariy
ascribed to the Chinese people or tho
conception that while tho rest Of tho
world IL going forward they are dis
posed to lag behind. A suggestion was
thrown out by tho Shanghai cores
pondent Of the London Times, writing
July 20, to tho effect that, inasmuch us
so many Of our most important invcn-
tions wero in use in China long before
they were discovered In Europe, u
Chinaman may yet startlc tho world
by some new invention in mechanics
which he has arrived at by purely IT
zrioai process of reasoning; and what
we now hear certainly gives fair color
to the possibility.
1t is, no doubt, true, that tho COM
parative inef''ciency of tho Chinese in
war has led many people of the outer
world to rate too low their capacity
otherwise. They do not love war, and
their skill In It Is small. Sitting Bull
and his braves could, doubtless, mako
mincemeat of twenty times their num-
ber of MongoIians. Young Man a fraid-
OI-nlS-hOTSS5 WOuiu lOt DC HC 0Il bIFAlu
of John Chinaman running down hill
with sword in each hand, while his
comrades beat gongs and touched Off
fireworks to inspire the foe with terror
in the rear. But a nation Of traders,
artisans and farmers, substantially at
peace for generations, who went into
the field and won the greatest civil
war known to history, knows well
how much a matter of habit and disci-
pline military efficiency is, and will
forbear to condemn for the want of it
q people who have many other deserv-
ing qualities. We can teach the Chinese
q great deal, but they can teach us
something also, and If, by precept or
example, they can disseminate among
us improved habits of frugality, tenn
perance and diligence they will be do
ing quite as much good as their de-
tractors arc likely to do, whose own
merits, admirable as they may be, are
by no means too conspicuous in the
particular virtues we have cited.