Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-09-16
QUEER OLD CANTOz.

Strange Sights In the Most Bewilderingly
Old-Fashioned CITY in the World.
I am sure that Canton is the queerest
the most wonderful and bewilderingly
old city under the sun. 1t certainly has
more strange sights to the square yaro
than any other city 1 ever saw. and ]
am willing to back it against all the rest.
Even now, when I try to recall the
strange scenes and sounds encoun,
tered on that memorable visit, it makes
nv ewes ache and my brain whirl, just
as it did then.
Well. well, we'll! What wonderful
old city it is! How bewildering. ane
how interesting at every step! This II
no more like the Chinese quarter OF
Hong Kong than an old bill is like 8
new Silver dollar. However, very diff.
ferent from what we had expected te
see! Compared with the substantial
newness and Europeanness of Hong
Kong, this is a veritable fossil. relic
of the past, with nothing of the nine.
teenth century about it to save the Euro
pean quarter and the steamer on the
river The city is all on the ground, or,
at the very most, it will not average
more than a story and half IN height.
Where the shops are thickest each
square is an unbroken succession OF
wide doorways; for in every shop the
whole end next to the street
is taken out bodily. From one
street corner to the next there is
only succession of open-ended rooms
and partition walls, with dark, narrow
passages thrown in here and there.
There is no architecture visible, for the
houses are so damned together that it is
| impossible to single out any one in par
! ticular without climbing on the roof to
see how much ii covers.
| If this is not n street in Wonderland
! it might as well be. 1t is only about
! eight feet wide, and many are less. The
! caves of the houses on each side project
a quarter or third of the way across
| the street, and the remaining third in
/ the middle is very often loosely covered
over with boards placed crosswise
When the sun is shining the streets are
! light enough, but in rainy or cloudy
weather they are very dark and gloomy
!. and the peculiar twilight effect only
adds another element of strangeness tt
the scene. Thank goodness, the streets
are we'll paved with smooth granite flag
stones. one foot by three, and being
kept very clean there is no mud to ploo
through, even when it rains. Pedes
trianism is the order Of the day. There
are no carriages, carts, drays, b's
freight wagons, omnibuses, or stree
cars to run over you if you fail to ge
out of the way, for all the freight l
carried by coolies.
Now and then, however, your wool
gathering is disturbed by stir and lou'
shouting down the street, and you SCI
the crowd parting to right and left
Then YOU know there is a sedan chat
coming, and you take shelter behind
sign board, or in a friendly doorway, o
flatten yourself against wall until tn
peripatetic nuisance has gone by. Blu
the streets are so narrow that chairs ar
not very often used. They move to
slowly; it takes too much shouting t.
clear the way, and when two men NEE
in a narrow thoroughfare one has to b
side-tracked before the other can go by
The use of the chair, therefore, is con
fined to lazy merchants and officers
weak women and swell Europeans. Fo
my part, would not do Canton in
sedan chair if l could have whole st
for nothing.
But there is one drawback to pedestr
anism. As you pass along you al
obliged to be on the alert to keep frol
coming into collision with half-nake
coolies, carrying all sorts of loads. A
loads arc carried in the same way; ever
school boy knows it, so Twill not stop t
describe it. No matter where you gt
you may be certain that every fe'
. minutes one of these coolies will com
: putting and shuffling along at do
trot, shouting every few steps to thos
in front of him to '.clear the track, -" n
load springing up and down, and h
bamboo lattice creaking rhythmicallv s
every STEP Cosmopolitan.