Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1889-04-18
j - ress aud 1akotaiaa
CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE.
ODD suPERsTiTloNs AND NOTIONS
or The CELEsTlALS.

the Great River Observation-Disclosures
liar Belief Concerning tho Making of
Medicine In America.
Shanghai liz about midway on the Pa
cific coast between the northern and
southern boundaries of China. It'll near
the mouth of, though not on, the great
river, the Yang-tse-Kiang, which divides
the empire into two equal portions. and
which forms the great central avenue of
trade, This is one of the greatest and
one of the longest rivers Of the world,
and it yies with the Nile in the rich de-
posts which it carries down from the
mountains Of Thibet and spreads over the
rich plains of China. Its waters where
it enters the sea are as yellow us clay, and
their contents are, | am told, as rich as
guaso. They form a fertilizer which the
Chinese use by irrigation, SO that it is
spread oyer much of the 549, 900 square
miles which forms its basin and makes
this land produce from two 10 three crops
per year.
LIFE ON II YANG-TsE-KIANG.
The Yang-tse Kiang has a fall nearly
doubts that of the Nile or the Amazon.
1T Is SO wide ut its mouth that when we
sailed up it in coming to Shanghai we
for a long way We're hardly able to see
the banks, and this width extends UP
the river for hundreds Of miles. 1t is
navigable for ocean steamers to Hankow,
a city of the size of Chicago, which is
situated on its banks 600 miles above
Shanghai, and river steamers can go
1880 miles up its winding course.
Above this there are gorges and rapids
which the foreigners now think can be
passed, and there will then be an open
Ing into the interior of China by this
means for more than 1000 miles. The
Yang-tse-Kian is so long that it would
reach from. San Francisco to New York
and push its way out into the Atlantic
II 1t could be stretched out upon a plane
of the face Of the United States. 1t is
longer than the distance from New York
TO Liverpool, and it is said TO be the
best stream In the world as to the ar
rangenient of it's branches. Its boat
population is numbered by hundreds of
thousands, and it is a city hundreds of
miles in length, made up of iunks, ships
and barges. These Chinese iunks are
gorgeously painted and carved. They
have the same style of sails and masts
that were used thousands of years ago.
and their sails are immense sheets Of
cotton patched together and stretched
on rods of bamboo which look like fish
ing poles, The sailors are pig tailed
men In fat clothes Of cotton who sing in
a cracked gibberish as they work, and
who understand how to manage their
rude sails 80 well that they can often
pass ships of more modern make. All
OF the Chinese boats have a pair of eyes
painted on the sides of their prows, and
the Chinese sailor would no more think
OF navigating without these than he.
would think Of eating without chop
sticks, II asked the reason he replies:
mo have eyes, no can see. No can
see, no can go"
Bishop Fowler, while sailing up the
Pie Ho to Picking. happened to ait with
his legs hanging over the boat SO that
they covered up n eye. He noticed
that the sailors were uneasy, and they at
last came to him and asked him to move
his legs, as the ship could not see to go.
CELESTIAL -suFERsTlTIoNs.
The Chinese are full of superstitions
and many Of them firmly believe that
the foreigners make medicines ont of
human beings. The massacre at ITEM
Ysin in 1870, in which twenty foreigners
We're killed and amcag them a number
OF French nuns, was caused by the re.
port that the sisters We're killing children
to get their hearts and eyes for medical
purposes, snd the trouble in Corea last
spring was caused by the circulation of
the stories that the missionari IS were
grinding up children's bones / make
medicine. This report was started by
the Chinese, and the latest attempt of
the kind ! find today here at Shanghai.
1t appears in a tri-,nonthly illustrated
magazine which the Chinese publish and
which sells for five cents n O This
contains a full description of how the
foreigners make their medicine, with
ghastly illustrations of the severed
trunks and the cut UP limbs of human
beings. In one cut men in American
clothes are bending over great furnaces
in which tho heads and legs of men are
boiling, and beside which great baskets
and tubs of cut up humans lie. The men
are stirring the steanling mass, and the
picture makes one think of the witches
caldron il ..MMacbeth.
The Chinese themselves do not believe
in dissection and there Is no body snatch
ing here. They believe that the heart is
the seat of thought, that the soul exists
in the liver and that the gall bladder is
the seal OF courage. For this reason the
gall hladders of tigers are eaten by sol
diers to inspire them with courage. The
Chinese doctor ranks no higher than the
ordinary skilled workman. He gets from
fifteen to twenty cents a visit, and he
often takes patients on condition that he
will cure them. within a certain time or
ITO pay. He never sees his female pa
tients except behind q screen, and he
docs not pay II second visit unless he
is invited. His pay is called golden
thanks. and the orthodox way of send
ing 1t to linn Is wrapped in red paper.
The dentists look upon pulled teeth rs
trophies, and they go about with neck
laces of decayed teeth about their necks,
Or with them strung upon strings ard
tied to sticks. Teotllache is supposed to
come from a worm intlie tooth, and there
are a set of female doctors who make a
business of extracting these worms.
When the nerve is exposed they take this
out and call it the worm. and when not
they use II sieigtnt-of-h hand by which
they make their patients believe certain
worms, which they show them, come
from their teeth. | have heard persons
tell OF Cinnamon who claimed to have
had ten worms taken from their mouths
In u single day, and ! saw Il woman ac-
tualIY at work unnn a n~afieutin the streat