The Newtown bee., 1879-07-16
A Curious Spectacle.


 A New York HerGld correspondent, describing General Grants visit to Can ton, China, says it was an extraordinary sight. The colors, the surroundings, the barbaric pomp, the phases of an ancient civilization, so new, so strange, so inter esting, and beyond all this teeming city, alive with wonder and curiosity, giving this one day to see the foreigner, to look in awe upon the face of the American whose coming had been discussed in every bazaar and by every silk loom in Canton The multitude seemed to have been pressed into space by some system of artificial pressure, the people were so | close together, men, women and chil- dren.
 At intervals of hundred yards were guards of soldiers, some carrying spears shaped like trident, others with slaves or bikes, others the clumsy, old-fash- toned gun. There is nothing martial in 1 the Chinese soldier, I am afraid, but his dress was specially decorated and helped to give color to the scene. Then came groups of mandarins (officials), their hats surmounted with buttons which | indicate their ranks, holding fans, and as the general passed saluting in Chinese fashion, raising both hands to tie fore head in supplicating attitude, holding them an instant and bringing them down with rotatory gesture. Wherever the street was intersected with other streets the crowd became so dense that addi- | tional troops were required to hold it in place, and at various points the Chinese salute of three guns was fired. The road to the viceregal palace was three miles, and as the pace of the coolie who carries your chair is slow one, and especially slow on days of multitudes and pa 1 geantry, we were over an hour in our | journey, and for this hour we journeyed through sea of faces, a hushed and silent sea, that swept around us, cover l ing windows, doors, streets, roof tops, wherever there was room for q pair of feet or hands. Some of the party esti- mated that there were 10000 people to witness General Grants progress through Canton.
 The young men were, as general thing, handsome, especially those ot GdnR, WHO were hnOWu DJ lIiClI bttu- tons, and who gazed upon the barbara
 ans with a supercilious and contemptu-
 ous expression, very much as young
 men of the same class would regard Sit
 ting Bull or Red Cloud from a club win
 dow as the Indian chiefs went in pro-
 cession along Fifth avenue. As mat
 ter of fact suppose they looked upon
 General Grant and his party as some o
 us would regard Red Cloud anC
 his braves. We were foreigners, out
 side barbarians, and if we came at all to
 viceregal palace-if we were received with music and the firing of cannon ant
 the beating of drums-it was because the Viceroy was in a gracious mood anf deigned to give the barbarian a sight o imperial Chinese splendor. But whil you saw this curious, inquiring, con , temptuous expression, now and thel 3 you saw in some hurried observation t and the ripple of mocking laughte t which came with it that you were un S der criticism, that your black coat o e white cravat or crushed opera hat-tha s your braided hat and embroidere Q shoulders were inspiring emotions lik Y thosA which the plumes and paint ( s Sitting Bull would inspire i'll the Dc - som of cynical New Workers.