Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1895-07-31
For the SPECTATOR.
FROM AFFIRMATION.

| On Thursday night of last week, a young
Chinese man by the name of Kia icing Teoons
addressed quite large, appreciative audience
at Bethlehem church in Concord on China anc
| its people. Something of an orator, he was
pleasant to listen to. His theme, novel as il
was, absorbed attention from beginning to
end. 1t is impossible to portray it in detail
suffice it to say, his delivery was splendid He
exhibited his long cue that he had cut off.
He would not, he said, lose his head in con-
sequence on his return to his native country,
but he would be an object of great compass
sion. He was it is true, the first man from
had his hair cropped. No Chinese would, he
further said, eat rat, as was enormously be-
lieyed, but he admitted that once upon time
many years ago. there was famine in China,
and the people were, as consequence, COM
PEELED to eat rats, mice, and whatever they
could lay hands on that would appease their
hunger. He was sorry the late war occurred
in his country, but it would be, in his belief,
under Providence the best for it and it would
open up Christianity there. He acknowledged
the faults of his countrymen, but he criticised
US for some of our inconsistencies. Kia icing
Teoong is a missionary under the American
name of J. II. Bell, having graduated from
Emory College, Oxford, Georgia, and is on an
extended tour through the country, to pay for
his education, and also to send him back to
his own country, where he will preach the
Gospel. He hopes to pay Stanton visit this
Fall. His lectures are very instructive as well
as entertaining, and should be attended by all
who have an opportunity offered; and he IS
withal a delightful conversationalist. By the
way, the Chinese have $4,000 characters, each
Of which represents word. 1t takes long
time for the natives to acquire the language,
and master them thoroughly. The Chinese
read from top to bottom, and from right to
left Our alphabet has but 26 letters, and is,
comparatively, easy to learn. Is it not? Kia
icing Teoong thinks it is wrong for the girls
in China to haye their feet bound and for our
ladies to bind their waists, in which opinion
we concur. The gait of the Chinese girls with
their bound feet is not good, while our ladies
with their thin waists look like wasps. These
practices, both cruel and unnatural, are in
furious to health, and should be discontinued.
The sumac season has fairly opened. Daily,
especially on Saturdays, ''sumac BULLS pa
tiently draw homemade conveyances loaded
with sumac, now and again believing, to the
ill hidden delight of the buyers who anticipate
the happiness it affords their better halves to
hear of the investment to be madein that appar-
emily worthless article of commerce. The mer
chants generally buy sumac with goods, giving
40 cents a hundred for it. They will make con-
siderable percentage, both ways-that is, profit
on gsods they buy and on sumac they sell to
the mills. But for this weed, the poor in the
country would find it hard to exc out an exis-
tence.
Blackberries and huckleberries abound in
this section, and are very fine. Blackberry
wine is being made in large quantities. A
gentleman in the country has sold six hundred
gallons of wine of last years product at rs
cents a gallon, and is making a good deal
more this summer.
The fragrant flowers, called water-l lilies,
bloom in profusion in the Dismal Swamp.
Lots of them are sent up daily and sold to
people along the railroad. They are pretty,
sweet-scented flowers, and all ladies are eager
to have some of them.
Miss Ellen Hill, a young, attractive lady
who has for the past ten years been resident
of our village, went over with, it is said, the
matrimonial bee buzzing in her ear to Char
lottesville last Saturday, on a visit to her sis.
ter. Her departure is regretted by the villag-
ers.
We le h0nanae SPECTATOR