The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-09-19

/ A'sSAAO AS0ACt6AQls gill Oes~'HSss>AOA
at Vienna, but now vice president OF
the senate, made me acquainted
with his wife at dinner which he
gave in my honor shortly after my ar
rival in Japan. The repast was served
European fashion and it was stag
party. Towards the close of the din.
ner, sliding door or screen was pushed
aside and there crawled in, with re
peated prostrations, first of all an old
lady, who was his legitimate wife and
of lofty birth. then the plebeian lady
who filed the role of Hagar in the
household of this Japanese Abraham
and then the children of both women.
I, in my ignorance of the social usages
of the country, was about to rise and
bow to the ladies, but my neighboI
pressed me down saying: Don't stir, y
while our host. jerking his thumb con.
temptuously over his shoulder towards
the woman exclaimed: MY wife," and
then motioned to them to retire, which
they did forthwith in the same manner
in which they had entered. So much
| for Oriental respect for women.
| II have drawn special attention
to the miseries of the union of Baroness
Rahden to 'Count" Aoki, whose rank
was authentic and who, as Asiatics
go, was an exemplary Jap, it is with
the object of showing how infinitely
more unhappy is the fate of those
white girls welded to Oriental hus-
bands less highly placed, and I shall
never forget the aspect of the broken
spirited and wretched London girl,
hailing from Bloomsbury. who had
been induced to become the wife of a
man named Minami while the latter
was occupying the post of vice consul
in the British metropolis. AS long
as they remained in London every
thing went we'll, but when he was
recalled and took her back with him
to Japan, where I first saw her, her
miseries began.
Asiatics have no sense of deoency, az
we understand the word, and any white
girl who takes up her residence any
where in the Orient must be prepared
to have her sense of delicacy and pro-
priety shocked and offended at every
turn.
In Japan men and women think
nothing of performing their most init
mate additions in the public street. and
in China, Siam, India, ETC., the people
are most primitive in their ideas as to
the requisite amount of dress demand
ed by conventionality. many of them
dispensing even with the breech clout.
Polygamy is rampant throughout the
east, no matter what the creed, and
most of the Asiatic nations nota BIZ
the japanese, have no native synonym
for the English word chastity. When
to all thisfis added the assurance that
the mosts Wanted civilization of the
Orientals, particularly Of the Japanese,
is nothing more than mere veneer.
devoid of any basis or founda tion, and
but thinly covering all the native vices
peculiar to the Oriental character.
American and European parents may
well ponder and hesitate beforegper-
hitting their daughters to mates ASH
atics.
Only the other day the English pa
pers contained story of a young girl
of Newcastle who had foolishly accept
ed an offer of marriage from young
Chinese naval officer, named Ling,
who had been sent to Europe
to study gunnery. All protests
on the part of her parents
were silenced by the apparent
sincerity of his attachment and
by the fact that he professed to be
Christian. His mansion in China was
most impressively described, and the
girls parents were asked to picture
her living in the most elegant of
Oriental luxury amid orange groves
and plants Of exquisite beauty. The
infatuated girl threw in her lot with
that of the Celestial and started with
him for China. Two years later she
was sent home by one of the mission
airy societies at Shanghai, mental
and physical wreck, the mission
aries reporting that she had first
been neglected, then illtreated
and finally abandoned by her
Chinese husband, who possessed
already a Chinese wife at the time Of
his marriage in England. This is only
one of a thousand similar cases, and
hear that the advertisement which ap-
peared in some of the London papers
three months ago to the effect that
rajah of the Bengal province and "a
respectable Indian gentleman" desired
to correspond with respectable Euro
pean young ladies with a view to mar
riage, has received an immense num-
Der of answers from girls and parents
of every class of society. Some of
these women who contract alliances
with Orientals become lost to sight for
ever after their marriage, and | know
of at least dozen instances where this
has been the case, and where the rela-
tives of the girl have every reason to
believe that she had persisted.
The Reason Why.
The reason that rich men have SO
many friends is because they are cap
ital acknowledgements Magazine.
Speaking of Baldness.
Some men are born bald, others &C.
quire badness early IN life, and others
get married.-Truth.
-Livingston-''I didn't know that
you and Miss Featherspray were SO
well acquainted" Nina-"oh, yes:
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