St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-03-11
STREET SCENES IN HONG KONG
HindoO Policemen, Parsees, Pro-
fessiOnaI Members and Female

Hod-Carrie


The most striking figures on Hong
Kong streets are the Sikh policemen.
tail, finely built Hindoos, with the
classic, finely cut features of that race,
writes a correspondent Of the Globe
Democrat from Hong Kong. In sum-
mer they wear military uniform of
white duck. and at this time coat and
trousers of dark blue cloth with silver
buttons. At all other times their heads
are wrapped up in the huge tur-
bans of bright red muslin, a broad four
yard strip being wound around their
heads in some way that they only can
do. The sikhs have great authority
over the Chinese, and at fires they keep
the screeching heathens roped off at a
good distance, and maintain order that
''our finest" might envy. Other Hin
docs. in less snowy and more primitive
clothes, pass by with the multitude. and
Oh the higher terrace roads one eeS
Indian ayahs, OF nurses, out with
flocks of little children. The ayahs'
scant winding-gOWnS and head-clothS
are generally white, and there is
something ghOstly in these slender, 81
lent figures. The ayahS carry them
selves well, and their finely cut noses
and gazeile eyes show what fine and
noble race they spring from. The Par
sees, with their black horsehair Chin
ney pot hats, with step in the crown,
and their close turbans of camel's hair,
eXquisitely woven and embroidered
with fine gold thread, and their pro-
truding eyes, are the most serious be-
ings in existence, yet they suggest
something comic to one. 1t may be
all in the cut of their coats,
which are straight sack, but
toned from the chin to the hem
in front. and falling straight and
tight at the back without flap. a cross
line. or curved seam. This coat
reaches nearly to the knees, and the
man has something the look of wearing
a coffin. In each of the side seams
under the arms there is pocket hole,
and altogether the Parsee's Prince AL
bert is fine caricature on that garment
of daylight ceremony. Cingalese, with
their one big bandana-sort of hand
kerchief OF tableclOth wrapped about
them for petticOat. and a child's round
hair comb set on their heads like cor
Onet set backwards, are matched by the
Malays, who wear any sort of costume
that they have been able to gather up.
10 my mind the unique feature of
Hong Kong streets are the professional
members OF sewing women, ugly, old
Chinese women, with half-dwarfed
feet, who come out in the morning with
low stools and basket of rags and sit
by the curbstOneS or in archways,
recesses or doOrways, and sew away all
day long. They do not exactly darn
stockings and sew on buttons, but their
labors correspond to that, and for
trifie a poor workman can have his
tattered coat patched and mended or
his old garments made over. Peddlers
of oranges, of dry goods, lamps, toys
and fancy wares stop bowling
their wares through the streets to
chat with the professional mend
ers, and of all Chinese women the
members seem to have the pleasantest
lot. They are wise-looking old Bettys,
all of them, and some times they wear
huge horn-rimmed Spectacles that make
them look like Minerals bird. To watch
them planning, and turning. and twist
ing their garments and rags is most di7
verting; and two old members down the
road here are beginning to look upon
me as an intending customer from the
way in which they try to further engage
my attention each time and display their
skill. The members look down the social
ladder a great ways at the cOOlie women
CluplOy GU VII puDllC WOlhS III tllt SITectS,
but the coolie women probably find
some one further below to drop their
superior gaze upon. 1t jars one little
to see women and children carrying
baskets of earth slung from pole over
one shoulder, but in this way all the
digging out and filling up of the Hong
Kong hillsides and terraces have been
done. These burden-bearers are not
above the small vanities of the sex
either, and they wear bracelets
and anklets OF white metal, ear
rings and hair ornaments of imitation
jadestone, poor things. One might ex-
pect these female hod- carriers to be
careless of, or Indifferent to, the charm
of delicate complexion; but they are
human and feminine even in that point,
and to the edge OF their flat coolle hats
they sew deep t1ounce of blue cotton,
that flutters about their ugly faces after
the same manner as the priceless lace
ruffie of her garden hat that shades the
face of the Empress Eugene in Winter
halter's famous portrait of that lovely
woman.