Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-12-26
CHINESE AND THEIR WAYS.
They Know Better Than Any Other Peo-
pie What Economy Means.

pie WhaG ECONOMY Means
The Chinese are prominently econ
omicai, 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 represent 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 abund-
ance may be supplied at less than a
penny a day for each adult. and even in
famine times thousands of persons have
been kept alive for months on about
a halfpenny a day each. This implies
the existence of a high degree of Gull
nary 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 pos
sible. What is left is the veriest trifle.
The physical condition of the Chinese
dog or cat, who has to live on the leav-
ings of the family, shows this. They
are clearly kept on starvation allow
anceS.
The Chinese are not extremely fastid-
ious 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 meat, are
well recognized among the people, but
it is considered better to eat the meat,
the cheapness of which is certain, than
to buy dear meat even with the assur-
ance of no evil results. Indeed, the
meat of animals which have died of or
binary ailments is rather dearer than
that of those which have died in an cpl
demic such as pleuro-pneumonia. An
other example of careful, calculating
economy is the construction 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 con-
sists generally of nothing but the stalks
and roots of the crops, which make a
rapid blaze and disappears. The bust
ness 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 a vast army of fuel gatherers
spread over the land. Bows ascend
trees and beat them with clubs to shake
off all the leaves; the very straws get
no time to show how the wind blows
before they are annexed by some col
lector.
Similar professional mi collec
tors swarm over all the roads of the
minute economyinto their dress. Moth
s-o. 49, 1880 - A1A-@N. g - . - xo4
used in one place it is in another, where
it appears a thing of beauty. Foreign
residents who give their cast-off clothes
to Chinese may be assured the career
of usefulness of these garments is at
last about to commence. Chinese
wheelbarrows 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 peoIee do not wash. The
motto, Cheaper than dirt, which the
soap dealer puts in his windows, could
not be made ineligible to the Chinese.
To them the average foreigners are
mere soap MASTERS.
Scarcely any tool can be got ready
made, it SO much cheaper to buy the
parts and put them together for your
self, and as almost everybody takes
this view, ready-made tools are not to
be got. Two rooms are dimly lightly
with a single lamp deity placed in a
hole in the dividing wall. Chinese, in
fact, seem to be capable of doing any
thing out of nothing. They will give
you an iron foundry on a minute scale
of completeness in a back yard, and
will make in an hour a cooking range,
a strong and perfect draught, out of a
pile of mud bricks, lasting indefinitely,
operating perfectly, and costing moth
ing. The old Woman who in her last
moments hobbled as. neal rs possible to
the family graveyard in order to die SO
as to avoid the expense of coffin bear
ers was Chinese WORTH China Herald.