Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1886-07-16
LIFE IN CHINA.

Oriental Customs That Seem Amusing
to Dwellers in the Occident.
Who and what are these melancholy
mortals who are meandering along COW
cred with sheepskins? They are what,
when you see them in Fleet street, you
call sandwich men" They are ex-
hibiting the wares purchasable at this
clothier's shop on our left Instead of
carrying dvertisement-boards, and
wandering up AMI down the street, n
layer of lean mortality between two
slices of wood, they wear upon their
own backs the very goods which you
are respectfully invited to inspect and
to buy. Do not imagine that China
mans mind feels any qualms at the
thought that these garments have been
for weeks upon the back of one of the
unwashed. He is troubled by no such
unpleasant reflections. But he would
no doubt drive harder bargain on the
plea that they had been already much
worn. These sheepskins are very high
ly valued in winter by the country peo
pie. If you were relating to an agricul-
tural audience in the south of China,
and in the north also to towns
people, the sufferings of the
prosecuted saints of old, it would
never do to tell them that "they wan
dered about in sheep-skins and goat
skins" You would err as much as
the Moravian missionaries did who first
preached of the fires of hell to the
Greenlanders. Those Arctic folk were
immensely pleased with the prospect of
going there, and the missionaries were
naturally very much shocked at the re-
suit of their own preaching And so,
to the Chinese mind, the wandering
about in sheep-skins and goat-skins does
not at all imply that they were ''desti-
tute, afflicted, tormented." They
would very much like to be prosecuted
to that degree. The Chinaman is a
wonderful creature for enduring end
less nuisances, regarding them as things
that are and have been, and therefore
still must be- We could scarcely have
better illustration of that last remark
than this stage, which has been thrown
right across the main thoroughfare.
We must either find our way round
by side street, or creep under the
stage as best we can. Fancy what il
would be for a band of itinerant
actors to erect a theater in Cheapside,
compelling all the traffic to turn aside
for whole day; and then consider thai
the street we are in bears about
the same relation to the city Of
Annoy as Cheapside does to tn,
city of London! Yet the people do no
complain. 1t is probable that not on'
in hundred who turn aside because tn,
road is blocked thinks that such nui
sance ought not to be allowed. 1t i
much moro likely that the inhabitant
of the street are objects of envy becaus
the theater is brought to their doors
Some shopkeeper in the street has in
vited the actors at his expense, and hi
neighbors are much obliged to him TO
giving them an opportunity of seem,
the play, and of hearing the drums beat
the bells ring, the cymbals clash. an
the actors howl and screech, without tn
trouble of leaving their shop-doors
The entertaining sights are so numerou
that to describe all that strikes the new
conner as fantastic would take volume
You may see a woman deliberatel
washing her long black hair in woode
bowl, combing it out and doing it up il