The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1889-04-19
THE HEATHEN CHINESE.
They are Fun OF superstitions and Like e
he Humbugged.


he Humbugged.
The Chinese are full of supersti-
tions. and many of them firmly be-
lieve that the foreigners make medi-
zines out of human beings. The mas
sacre at Tien-Tsin in 1870. in which
twenty foreigners were killed, and
among them a number of French nuns,
was caused by the report that the sis
ters were killing children to get their
hearts and eyes for medical purposes,
and the trouble in Coroa last spring
was caused by the circulation of the
stories that the missionaries were
grinding up children's bones to
make medicine. This report was
started by the Chinese, and
the latest attempt of the kind
1 find to-day here at Shanghai. 1t ap-
pears in tri-monthly illustrated mag
azine which the Chinese publish and
! which sells for five cents a copy. This
| contains q 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
]
nre boiling, and beside which
great baskets and tubs of cut-up
humans lie. The men are stirring the
steaming mass and the picture makes
one think of the witches caldron in
Macbeth" In another cut is shown
the machinery for the bringing up Of
the bones and flesh. A dozen old skel-
etons lie upon the floor, and man
with shovel puts the CHASTITY mass
upon the scales for weighing In an
other room the medicine is packed up
to be sent away, and young ladies in
American dress with waterfalls and
French heels are busy at it. asked
the manager of the magazine whether
he believed in such stuff, and he re-
piled that he did not know and asked
il it was not really true.
, The Chinese themselves do not be-
lieve in dissection, and there is no
body-snatching 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 seat OF
| | courage. For this reason the gall
bladders of tigers are eaten by soldiers
to inspire them with courage. The
Chinese doctor ranks no higher than
the ordinary skilled workman. dc
gets from fifteen or twenty cents a
, visit. and he often takes pa
4 tients on condition that he will
= cure them within a certain time OF
. no pay. He never secs his female
= patients except behind a screen, and
& he does not pay a second visit unless
T invited. His pay is called ''golder
@ thanks" and the orthodox way o
Q sending it to him is wrapped IN rec
y paper. The dentists look upon pulled
m teeth as trophies, and they go abou
IS with necklaces Of decayed teeth abou
T. their neclxs or with them strung upoi
u strings and tied to sticks. Toothach
- is supposed to come from worm IN IN
"a tooth, and there are q set OF femal
le doctors who make a business Of extract
0f ing these worms. When the nerve /
exposed they take this out and call /
70 the worm, and when not they use
le sleight of hand by which they max
a. their patients believe certain worms
le which they show them, came tror
1T their teeth. have heard persons tel
p of Cinnamon who claimed TO have ha
r. ten worms taken from their mouths Il
single day, and saw woman ac'
OF uallv at work upon patient in tn
street here. China is as full oi super
a. "a 5tition as the West India islands an
Oh the people like to be humbugged quit
rv as well here as we do in America.
lis Frank g. Carpenter in Chicago Times