Barre evening telegram. (Barre, Vt.) 1898-19??, 1899-12-08
A LESSON IN HISTORY
ny WRIGHT A. PATTERSON.

nj the chlloren aS they rueheu INV W"
~ sitting-room after the evening
meal had been finished and climbed INTO
Grandpa's lap.
"Won't you tell me about the fairies"
asked little Elizabeth, to whom Grandpa's
historical stories did not appeal very
strongly.
81 will tel you about the fairies to-mor.
row when Nellie and Tom are at school,,
said Grandpa, "but tonight l thought !
would tell Of something l was reminded OF
when | was reading the newspaper to-day.
1t said in the newspaper that this country
had asked the foreign countries to maintain
an open door in China"
"What does an open door in China
mean?" asked Nell.
81 know" said Tom. "There ia great big
wall around China and the people from these
other countries have got inside, and now
they want to shut the doors of the wall and
keep US out, and we don't want to stay out.
Amt that it, Grandpa"
"Well, that is pretty near the whole sub
ject in a nushell," said Grandpa, with
laugh. "But for the information of Nellie
will 90 into details little more. To keep
the doors of China open means that this
country wants the privilege of trading in the
Chinese cities on the same terms that are
granted to the merchants Of other countries.
THAT does not seem like an unreasonable
demand when one knows how much this
| country did to secure the privilege of trad
ing in China for not only the merchants OF
our own country, but for those Of all other
| countries as well, and it is of what we DID
that am going to tell you little. If l
| should try to tell you all that our country
did there would be SO much of it that you
would never be able to remember it all.
when our country was very young
country, just after Gen. Washington and
his soldiers had forced England to grant us
the independence for which we had been
fighting, China was almost unknown to the
people living in other countries. Of course
boats had sailed along the shores, and few
of them had sailed up some of the rivers,
but very few people from other countries
had ever gone very far into the great coun-
try, and the merchants of the other coun-
tries had never been able to sell the Chi
nese much or to buy much of them.
"Other nations did not think it right that
this great country should deny their mer-
chants the right to trade with the people of
China, and they tried to get the Chinese
government to let them into the country to
trade with the people.
among the ships that went to China in
those days to try to trade with the people
was first one and afterwards many from
America. That first ship that went from
America to China was owned by Maj. Shaw,
who had been one of Gen. Washington a
soldiers in the revolutionary war, and he
thought to honor his general by starting on
the generals birthday. So he sailed away
from America for Canton, China, on Feb
rrary %, 1884, and his ship carried the
American flag to that far-otf land for the
first time. Maj. Shaw was not very success
full in his enterprise, as the Chinese were
very averse to foreigners of all kinds, and
did not want to buy the things he took with
him.
But his lack of success did not deter
other Americans from trying to reach the
trade of China. Not only did our merchant
ships continue to visit Chinese cities, but we
also sent missionaries to teach them the
Bible, and the ways Of a more civilized life,
"When our ships first began going to
China there were ships there from both
England and Holland but otter a little
while the ships from Holland almost
ceased to visit China at all because the wars
! Of Europe destroyed much of Holland
commerce, and then about the only ships
! that visited China were those from England
| and America.
I'm those early days every ship that went
to China had to protect itself against the
pirates that captured every ship they could
stole the goods it carried and killed the men
on it. The Chinese government was not
| Of apouuh tn haco pirafpa n
so it fell to the lot of the ships visiting China
to do So In this work American and Eng,
lsh ships joined together, and after awhile
they had driven all the pirates away. The
last time l was in HoEg-Kong, which is a
Chinese city under the control of England
| saw handsome monument which the
| English government had erected there to the
memory of not only the English sailors who
| the American sailors as well, and every
year that monument is decorated just as we
decorate the graves of our dead soldiers on
| Decoration day
After our country grew older it built
| warships, and some of these it sent to China.
| When these warships got to China it was
| their business to protect ships from Amer
| lea. So it happened that when the Chinese
| soldiers fired on an American ship, about the
middle of the present century, the American
warships that were near taught the Chinese
lesson which they have never forgotten.
The Chinese had powerful forts and big
cannon, and there was only one of our war
ships that could get near enough to the
forts to hit them, but that one vessel de-
stroyed the fort and the sailors captured all
of the cannon and many of the soldiers, and
taught the Chinese such lesson that they
never after that molested any of the Amer
lean ships.
at was such things as these that finally
convinced the Chinese government that it
should allow the foreign ships to bring for
eign goods to their cities and permit foreign
merchants to buy goods in China. 30 they
made treaties with the other nations per-
uniting such an exchange of trade in certain
| Chinese cities, and our country was one of
| the first of the foreign nations to make
such treaty with China.
"Since then other nations have made an.
other kind of treaty with China which gives
| them control over some of these cities where
| American merchants have been allowed to
| trade, and our country does not want them
| to restrict the privileges our merchants
have had in those cities before such treaties
were made. So you see Toms explanation
Of what the open door in China meant was
pretty nearly correct, for there is big wall
around part of China.
"There is just one other thing about this
country and China that l want to tell you
and then you must run away to bed with
mamma. Until just few years ago the is
land of Fornosa belonged to China, and
during that time an American ship was
wrecked on its shores. The sailors on this
ship were all killed by the people on the is