Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1889-10-10
LIFE ON A PENNY A DAY.
A Land in Which Nothing is Allowed
to 60 to Waste.

The Chinese are pre- eminently economi-
cal, whether it be in limiting the number
of wants, in preventing wants, or in adjust
ing forces in such a manner as to make q
little represent great deal. The univer-
sal diet consists of rice. beans, millet, gar.
den vegetables and fish, with little meat
on high festivals. Wholesome food in
abundance may be supplied at less than q
penny q day for each adult, and even in
famine times thousands of persons have
been kept alive for months on half penny
day each. This implies the existence of
high degree of culinary skill in the Chi
nese. Their modes of preparing food are
thorough and various There is no waste;
every thing is made to do as much duty as
possible. What is left is the veriest trifle
The physical condition of the Chinese dog
or cat who has to live on the leavings of
the family, shows this. They are clearly
kept on starvation allowance.
The Chinese are not extremely fastidious
in regard to food; all is fish that comes to
their net and most things come there
sooner or later Certain disturbances of
the human organization, due to eating dis
eased meat, are we'll recognized among the
people, but it is considered better to eat
the meat, the cheapness of which is certain,
and run the risk of the consequences,
which are not quite certain, than to buy
dear meat even with the assurance of evil
results Indeed the me at of animals which
have died of ordinary ailments ia rather
dearer than that of those which have in an
epidemic, such as pleuro pneumonia. An
other exa1 pie of careful, calculating econ
omy is the construction of the cooking pots
and boilers, the bottoms of which are as
thin as possible TINT the contents may boil
all the sooner, for fuel is scarce and dear,
and consists generally of nothing but the
stalks and roots of the crops, which make
a rapid blaze and disappear. The business
of gathering fuel is committed to children,
for one who can do nothing else can at
least pick up straws and leaves and weeds.
In autumn and winter vast army of fuel
gatherers spread over the land. Boys
ascend trees and beat them with clubs to
to shake all the leaves the very straws get
no time to show which way the wind
blows before they are annexed TO some
collector.
Similarly professional manure collectors
swarm over all the roads of the country.
Chinese women carry this minute economy
into their dress. Nothing comes amiss TO
them; if it is not used in one place it is in
another, where it appears thing of beauty.
Foreign residents who gave their cast off
clothes to Chinese may be assured the
career of usefulness of these garments is at
last about TO commence Chinese wheel
barrows squeak for want Of a few drops of
oil, but to people who have no nerves the
squeak is cheaper than the oil. Similarly
dirt is cheaper than hot water, and so, as a
rule, the people do not wash. The motto,
"Cheaper than dirt" which the soap dealer
puts in his windows, could not be made in
telligible to the Chinese To them the
average foreigners are merely soap wasters.
Scarcely any tool can be got ready made,
it is so much cheaper to buy the parts and
put them together for yourself, and as al
most every body takes this view, ready
made tools are not to be got Two rooms
are dinlIy lighted with a single lamp
deftly placed in hole in the dividing
wall Chinese, in fact, seem to be capable
of doing anything by means ct almost
nothirg. They will give you an iron foun-
dry OF minute scale of com mpleteness in
back yard and will make. in an hour, a
cooking range, with a strong and perfect
draught, out of pile of mud bricks, last
ing indefinitely, operating perfectly and
costing nothing The old woman who, in
her last moments. hobbled as near as pos
sible TO the family graveyard, in order to
die so as to avoid the expense of coffin
bearers was Chinese.-Minnedp0li Journal.