The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-09-30

showing 10 SeI Dy.-LJe
Chinese Economy.
The Chinese are prominently conom
ical whether it be in limiting the number
of wants, in preventing waste, or in adj
justing forces in such manner as to make
a little represent a great deal. The uni
versal 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 a penny a day for each adult, and
even in famine times thousands OF per-
sons have been kept alive for months on
about a half-penny a day each. This i'm
plies the existence of 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 pos
sible. What is left is the veriest trife.
The physical condition of the Chinese
dog and cat, who hus to live on the leav-
ings of the family show this. They are
clearly kept Oh starvation allowances.
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 disturb
ances of the human organization, due to
eating diseased meat, are well recognized
among the people, but it is considered
better to eat meat, the ~cheapness of which
is certain, and run the risk of the conse-
ouences, which are not quite certain,
than to buy e meat even with the as
surance of no evil results. Indeed, the
meat of animals which have died of ordin-
airy ailments is rather dearer h hat of
those which AVE an epidemic such as
pleuro-pneumonia. Another example of
careful, calculating economy is the con-
struction ST the cooking pots and boilers,
fba bottoms nf which ara pS thin ps pncci-
BILE, tnat the contents may boil al 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 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. Boys ascend trees and peat them
with clubs to shake all the leaves: the
very straws get no time to show which
| way the wind blows before they are an
neXed by some collector.
Chinese women carry this minute econ
omy into their dress. Nothing comes
amiss to them; 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 to Chinese may
be assured the career of usefulness of
these garments is at last about to COM
mence. Chinese wheel-barrows squeak
for want of a few drops of oil, but to
people who AVE 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 Ineligible to the Chinese. 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 al
most everybody takes this view, ready
made tools are not to be got. Two rooms
are dimly lighted with a single lamp
| deity placed in a hole in the dividing
wall. Chinese, in fact, seem to be capable
of doing anything by means of almost
nothing. They will give you an iron
| foundry on a minute scale of complete
ness in a back yard. and will make in an
hour a cooking range, with strong aud
perfect draught, out of a pile of mud
bricks, lasting indefinitely, operating per-
fectly, and costing nothing. The old
woman who in her last moments hobbled
as near as possible to the family grave
yard in order to die so as to avoid the ex-
pense of coffin-bearers was Chinese.
HHM A .a y