Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1886-07-14

Life in Chinese hamlet is wound uI
to run like clockwork, and its busy regu.
larity never varies. The hamlet itself,
says a writer, is often very picturesque.
Here is a group of 700 or 500 houses,
situated between two graceful hills, pre-
sentng charming view. Excepting
about hundred tradcsmen masscd on
the banks of small river that runs
through the valley, the inhabitants have
scattered their cottages little every
where, leaving between them here and
there spaces occupied by fields and gar
dens. The stream, spanned BY bridges,
is constantly dotted with big and little
boats going and coming from ncighbor-
ing towns. Compelled to shape their
fields according to the sinuosities the
water describes and the contours Of the
bills, their designs are of the most UNI
loOked-for sort. BY small canals, CON
vcying the water from the river, the ter
races on the hills are irrigated for cult
Walton. Upon these terraces the gay,
green color of the rice fields predom-
mates over the darker tint of the sugar
care in spots not so well irri-
gatcd big yellow flowers stand
out on the cotton stalks; lines of
orange trees, with their sombre LEAKAGE,
are visible, and beyond stretch planta-
tons of tea trees, under which is caught
glimpse of the gray Garth, contrasting
with all the ret. Rice, tea, cotton,
sugar and oranges are the most import mt
crops of the locality, but there are several
others that add to its income, viz.
Hemp, yielded by palm tree, its large
leaves reaching twenty feet from the
ground; oil extracted from a tree which
has disgusting look on account of its
knotty, crooked trunk and rusty leaves,
and bamboo, the most useful of all the
small trees, and exceedingly graceful
with its branches extending thirty feet
and balancing their leaves in the slight
est breeze. The country roundabout ha'
lunches of small trees, from which as
cend morning, noon, and evening, silver
tinklings from the bells of dozen page
das revealing their triple roofs of yellow
tiles and their upturned corners through
riffs in the foliage against the pure blu,
of the sky. No rumbling wheels ar,
heard, and even the song of birds, tn,
echoing voices Of the field laborers, d,
not break the deep prevailing stiffness.
Diminutive as the farms are, their yelt
is enormous. On farm Of four acres
family will live comfortably and econo
mize five or six hundred dollars year
TO secure such result, the tillers do no
limit themselves to selling the raw prod
ucts of the land, but transform them a
far as possible by manufacturing in thei
homes They manufacture, by primitiv
process, their own oil and sugar, ant
weave their silk, hemp, cotton, and, b.
thus establishing manufactures as nue.
as possible on the farms, keep many Ia
borers attached to the soil and proven
their concentration in large factories
which would encourage everproduction
They proportion the quantity of thei
products to their immediate wants, thor
oughly convinced that steady work will
always supply them from year to year
AS consequence, little capital is accu
mulated, an China, perhaps, has les
money piled up than any other natio
of the woriG. All this is simply in nc
cordance with frugal methods Of livin
and the cardinal idea that work is tn
chief end OF man. baltimore american
/