Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1886-08-13

able to perform the heavy labor in tn,
mines. Yet the number of occupa
tons i'll which their strength is ade
quate to the greatest performance pos
sible with laboring men is compara
lively small. 1t should be kept il
mind that, both in civil and militar,
pursuits, the value of physica
strength, pure and simple, has beer
constantly diminishing for more thar
two hundred years. What gunpOw
der and impsoHements in ffe~rm,
have done to degrade the value O
physical prowess in war, improve
ments in implements and machinery
have done to debase the value of phys
ical strength in arts and industries.
The Chinese marry young, for the
reason that the male children become
at an early age a source OF profit tC
their parents, and the marriages are
usually prolific. Such being the rea.
son-instead of early maturity, as in
tropical or semi-tropical climate
there is not that premature old age
among them which one would other
wise expect; for although the proper.
tion who reach seventy years is less
than in Europe or America, probably
the number that are capable of severe
labor at the age of sixty is equal to
that of any other country. In the
eastern provinces especially, the
largest and most populous of The En-
pire, containing nearly two hundred
millions of inhabitants, the people are
hale and hearty, and have we'll been
characterized by close observer as
ga great and healthy mass of human
beings, athletic and industrious, and
capable of the most enormous and
unwearied industry" That life in
China has reached certain balance,
an equilibrium between the influences
which sustain and those which de-
strOy, is manifest when we consider
that by far the largest portion of this
immense population live in the depths
of indigence, and under conditions of
life that, if endured by the people of
other civilized countries, would quick
ly reduce them to mental and physi-
cal inanition.
Some of the causes of this we have
already considered, but there is still
another not less important. Owing to
the low ebb of medical knowledge
among the Chinese and the hardships
incident to the lives of the masses, the
weaker among the children die early,
and only the stronger survive to per-
petuate the race. This, continued
through hundred and fifty genera
tions, has produced the physical type
of the people; type in which max
imum of mental activity and muscu-
lar endurance is derived from mini
mum of comfort and nutrition. The
fact that the extent of the Chinese
population has only been limited by
the means of subsistence, has pro-
duced those conditions of life and So
ciety which provided to the Chinese
the strongest motives for leaving their
own country, when the barriers of em-
igration are thrown down, and ut the
same time render them most danger
Gus competitors, wherever they may
find their way. In their own country
their condition is manifested by the
crowding of their dwellings; by low
rates of wages; by a small scale of
business when they rise above the
status of mere laborers; and by the
narrowest profits on every ordinary
business transaction. These habits,
acquired by necessity and use, are
carried with them where ever they
60, and as result they are able to un-
dermine laborers who, from physical
constitution and training, are unable
to live upon the same minute proper
ton of the comforts or necessaries of
life.
The houses of China vary in con-
struction in different portion of the
country. In some parts they are of
brick; in others, built of mud laid up
the same as concrete walls are some
times with us; in others the sides are
composed mainly of mating coated
with mud, while in one large district
the habitatiOns are dug i'll the earth
and from system of caves or subter-
ranean dwellings. Even in the large
cities a family OF ten persons can live
for about four hundred dollars year
including clothing and food, and with
| tiIC ulubuttA VI
whole dwelling to themselves. The
expense of living to a laborer is stated
at from two to two and half dollars q
month, which includes food, clothes
and rent. Away from the cities the
expenses are reduced fifty per cent
in cases fifty to sixty people inhabit a
single dwelling, which reduces the ex
pense to each still further. The
Chinese immigrants at Batavia, the
Dutch capital of Java, showed in each
house ten men fit to bear arms.
Under such conditions comfort
health and morals must be reduced
to the lowest degree. This is illus
traetd by the fact that in the north o
China the beds are made larger ol
smaller in proportion to the family
are constructed of brick, and art
warmed by small stoves. The usua
size Of Chinese houses, except among