The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-14

screw up and down and the slop splashes
to and fro as he passes you. You put your
smelling bottle to your nose, draw your
knees close together and hug the wall to
let him go by. Behind him come two
scowling Cinnamon carrying hides. They
have half ton Of raw skins swung In the
center of a pole, which rests upon their
shoulders, and thew grunt and grunt IN
harmony of woe as they rush toward you.
Other laborers behind follow with other
loads, and you note that every couple has
its own peculiar grunt or sound. Some
cry: "O-ah, o-ah, che, che, Ohio, Ohio,
che" The men on the wharves have
their own grunt, and even men working
alone make spasmodic noises of the most
horrible kinds to help them in their work.
The Chinese have no such thing as
baked bread. They boil their dough, and
you can get boiled biscuits almost any
where. They are great on frying dough IN
grease, and North China may be called the
land of the doughnut. 1t is the general
opinion that the Chinese live almost en-
tireIy upon rice This is a great mistake.
Rice is expensive everywhere, and the peo-
pie of the north are too poor to eat 1T. Ihey
use millet seed and sorghum seed, which
are ground up like we grind wheat. Rice
is the bread of South China, and pork is
the chief meat all over the empire. The
average Chinese hog is the dirtiest animal
in the world. 1t gets it's living off the
foul refuse of the city's streets, and the
biggest of the Chinese cities permit the
pigs to run wild within them. There are
different grades of pork in China, as there
are in America, and the finest kind of pork
comes from an island south of Hongkong.
The pigs here are fed upon chestnuts.
They are shipped tc all parts of China, and
they bring high prices. The better class
of Chinese will not touch rats, and dogs
are usually eaten by the well-to-do Chinese
only as medicine. Sucking pigs form
part of each big feast, but they are brought
on the table cut up into little cubes, so that
they can be eaten with chopsticks.
The Chinese are fond of some kinds of
worms, and there is greenish brown
worm, which comes from the rice fields,
which brings high prices in the markets.
They eat silkworm grubs, and in some
parts of the empire the poorer people eat
snakes. In Annoy and Swallow snakes are
sold for food and they are used to make
soup. They are quite expensive, and a
good-sized snake of the right variety will
restaurants well patronized, and there are
peddling cooks everywhere. The average
laborer buys his lunch where he works if
he belongs to the cities, and wherever there
is band of workmen you will find from
one TO dozen lunch-peddlers. 1t is the
same as to smoking. On nearly every cor
ner you find a table with lot of pipes upon
it, and man standing beside it ready to
rent them out for fraction of a cent a
smoke. The pipes are made of copper and
they are sort of water pipe, with which
you draw the smoke through the water be-
fore it comes into your mouth. The bowls
hold about thimblefu of tobacco, and
the pipe has to be lighted about every two
minutes. OF late years the Chinese of the
seaports have taken to smoking cigarettes,
and you find great quantities of Ameri-
can cigarettes consumed in Shanghai and
Canton.
In my walks through the Chinese cities
the things that impressed me the most
were the things that did not see. Hooked
IN vain for street lamps. There was no sign
OF sewerage, and the public buildings were
more like stables than anything else. The
only ire preventives were wells which had
been dug here and there, and which were
kept full in order to use in case of confla-
grations, and great clay jars which were
placed on the roofs of some of the houses.
| was told that the houses were mum bered,
and at the corners l saw characters which
gave a description or census of the families
in the neighborhood. Most of the streets
of the cities which visited outside of Pc
king were paved with stone, which had
been worn smooth by the bare and shod
feet of thousand generations of human
beings. Outside of the hogs and the dogs.
you see few animals in one of these big
towns. There are no carts and no carriages.
The men ride through the streets in chairs,
and the merchandise is carried by men or
pushed and dragged through the city in