The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-08-03
Chinese and their Ways.

nomical. whether it be in limiting
the number of wants, in preventing
waste, or in adjusting forces in such
a manner as to make a little repre-
sent a great deal. The universal diet
consists OF rice. beans, millet, garden
vegetables. and fish, with a little
meat on high festivals. Wholesome
food in abundance may be supplied
at less than penny day for each
adult, and even in famine times
thousands of persons have been kept
alive for months on about half
penny day each. This implies the
existence CT a high degree of culinary
skill in the Chinese. 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 Yeriest
trifie. 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 starva-
ton allowances.
The Chinese are extremely fastidi-
GUS 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 organiza-
ton, due to eating diseased meats.
are well recognized among the people
but il is considered better to eat the
meat. the cheapnesS of which is GER
tain, and run the risk of the conse-
quences, which are not quite certain,
than to buy dear meat even with the
assurance of no evil results. Indeed,
the meat of animals which Fave died
of ordinary ailments is rather dearer
in an epidemic such as pleuro-pneu-
MONA. Another example of careful
calculating economy is the construc-
ton of the cooking pots and boilers,
the bottoms of which are as thin as
possible that the contents may boil
all the sooner, for fuel is scarce and
dear, and consists generally of moth
ing but the stalks and roots of the
crops, which make a rapid blaze and
disappear. The business Of gather
ft,o 10, nd To nh id
one who can do nothing else can at
least pick up straws and leaves and
weeds. In autumn and winter a
vast army of fuel gatherers spread
over the land. Boys ascend trees and
beat them with clubs to shake off the
leaves the very straWs get no time
to show which Wav the wind blows
before they are annexed by some en-
terprising collector.
Similarly professional manure col
lectors swarm all oyer the roads of
the country. Chinese women carry
this minute economy into their
if it is not used in one place it is in
another, where it appears a thing of
beauty. Foreign residents who gave
their cast-off clothes away to Chinese
may be assured the career of useful
ness of these garments is at least
about to commence, Chinese wheel
barrowS squeak for the want of 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 rule, the
people do not wash the motto
"cheaper than dirt" which the soap
dealer puts in his windows, could
not be made ineligible to the Chin
csc. To them the average foreigners
are mere soap. MASTERS.
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 almost everybody
takes this view ready made tools are
not to be got. Two rooms are dimly
lighted with a single lamp deity
placed in hole in the dividing wall.
Chinese, in fact, seem to be capable
of doing anything by means of al
most nothing. They will give you
an iron foundry on minute scale of
completeness in a back yard, and
will make in an hour a cooking
range. of strong and perfect draft, out
of pile of mud bricks. lasting in
definitely, operating perfectly and
costing nothing. The old woman,
who in her last moments hobbed as
near as possible to the family grave
yard in order to die so as to avoid
the expense of coffin-bearers was
Chinese.-North China Herald.