Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-09-14
KITES oF THE FAR EAST.
At Once the Envy and Despair of Civilized
 Western Youth.

Western Youth.
 One might wander about the national museum for half year without taking notice of a collection of extraordinary Chinese kites, which are suspended overhead in the middle of the west wing. Nevertheless they are well worth looking at, exhibiting as they do a versatile ingenuity of device in flying apparatus undreamed of by Europeans or Americans
 The small boy of the United States, born an inventor because he is a Yan- kee. thinks he is performing feat if he succeeds in causing to soar a simple pentagon of sticks and paper, of most primitive shape, with tail of rags. Such a contrivance, in comparison with the scientific kites of China and Japan, is the merest crudity unworthy of a civilization that vaunts itself superior to hoary and effete east
 Can the youth of this continent afford to confess a mechanical inferiority to Chinese and Japanese of equal age? As suredly not. And yet it must be admit ted that the adolescent intelligence of those races would regard the kites one sees in this country with an utter and superior contempt.
 The Caucasian kite bears the same relation to the Chinese flyer as is borne by the flint hatchet to the modern ax, It represents the acknowledgement of a primary principle improved upon by thought In the collection spoken of 1 are kites in the shape of frogs, lizards, l cranes, owls, gigantic flies and enor- l nous locusts-
 Speaking of locusts, one is reminded of certain novel, translated from the English into French, in one chapter of which there was mention of the hero $ 1 tying his horse to locust tree in front l of the heroine's door when about to make her a visit.
 Unfortunately, the translator thought that the word locust" referred to the insect of that name, and explained the \ matter in an off-hand foot note, which said that in the United States locusts frequently grew to such gigantic size that they were stuffed and utilized at l the curbstone for fastening horses to-. l However, that has nothing to do with l kites.
 Among those described at the mu- | scum are human figures of all sorts, as well as many queer animals of paper \ and sticks, beside the ones already men, toned; but by far the most extraor- dinary of all is a kite thirty feet or more long, in the shape of snake-like | dragon. No one but a Chinaman or a Japanese would suppose that such a \ thing could be flown. and yet it is known that they float them with astonishing l effectiveness.
 1 Such a kite does not in the least re- semble any plaything of the sort known in this part of the world. It is con- posed of number of pasteboard disks, each a foot in diameter, fastened to- 1 gether with spaces between by cord running the length of the dragon, with a ferocious-looking paper head.
 The string held by the manipulator of this extraordinary toy is attached al three or more points in its length, sc that it may be controlled in the air.
 While af1oat the long tail has an undu- lating and serpentine motion, thus pro ducing very realistic effect
 Kite flying has been reduced to 8 science in China, where many thou
 sands of people will gather upon a hill
 on a holiday for the purpose of enjoy
 ing the sport. Many of the kites are
 cut loose and let go, because it is i'm
 agined that they float away with mis
 fortunes that are threatening.
 The Japanese are not less superior tc
 Europeans in the art of top spinning
 than in that of flying kites Their
 skill in this latter sport is at once the
 envy and despair of civilized western
 youth. Washington Star.