The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1895-06-27

divided into a dozen long sheds, with
blue tiled roofs; the laborers sit on lit
tie stools at long bench-like tables.
AS sooa as one man finishes his part
of the work he passes 1t on to his
neighbor, the latter following his ex-
ample when lie has done his share,
and thus 1t starts at one end Of the
table as a little paper and a fuse and
comes out at the other end a finished
firecracker.
The next room I visited was dcvot-
ed to braiding and wrapping the
crackers, and the next to packing them
for shipment. They are packed in
boxes much resembling the common
tea box and contain thirty packages
A box In this country brings $1.25 and
after duty and shipment have been
paid it is wonder any profit Is made
at all.
The two proprietors of this estab.
lishment, which, by the way, is call
ed the 'yat shing' showed me into the
room where the designer Of labels sat
at work. He was an old man, with
.bamboo-bound spectacles, and sat at a
desk drawing flowers, gnomes and
draGons in all the grotesquencss Of
Chinese art. I had some Of the char
acters Oh one of the labels translated.
There We're three large characters in
the eenter, and they conveyed the use
full information Of Thousand, blazing,
hall" What does it mean? 1t is a
word picture and endeavOrs to convey
the idea that their goods are of such
a superior quality that they are liken-
ed unto q large hall or palace blazing
with splendor. This is as good an eX-
PLANTATION as can be given. If you can
catch the idea you have the principle
of the Chinese language, but until you
do you will never be able to learn the
language Of the celestial empire.
After the designer and engravers
have done their work the blocks go TO
the printing room, where they are
printed with hand presses, but such
presses. II you would take old Ben
F'ranklin's press, break it to pieces
and prop it up with rope and bamboo,
you would have a fair sample of
Chinese press. They are clumsy, rick
ety-looking things, and look as if Il
breath of air would blow them over.
yet it is wonderful what an amount
Of work can be done with them in q
day; besides the Chinese do not want
machinery. Human labor Is cheap,
for there is so much of it, therefore,
anything that will lessen labor is a
curse to the country. A mandarin who
introduced a silk machine in Annoy
by doing SO starved to death four hum
dred families. We can better under
stand the large popula ton of this
country when we learn that the PROV
ince Of Nganhwui in China contains
"a, 1es, 200, while Eiang Su contains 3D.
S43, 500, altogether making 72,O11, 700.
Just think of it, two states in China
contain over 100000 more people
TRAN the whole United States.
AS paper forms such an important
part of the firecracker you can imag-
ing the making of it must be a large
industry in Canton and so it is. How
ever, the paper mills are anything but
imposing structures. They are low,
square buildings, with dirty, white
washed sides, the only pretty thing
about them being the large, double
tiled roofs with tJlrned-up' corners.
There are not more than 100 workmen
in each mill, for paper being made
more easily than frecrackers it does
not need as many laborers. They are
also men born to the profession, men
whose children will grow up to be
paper makers after them. Every
morning during their lives they wake
up with the one endless routine before
them and they eat and sleep, too, in
the great paper GRILL. The paper is