Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1901-05-23

of her small world, hiying for her
satellites her neighbors, Korea, Thib-
ct, Burmah, Siam, Anam, Liu Chiu and
Cochin China.
Filial Devotion.
Filial devotion is the lesson every
child is taught. Perhaps | may say
| tilial plety is the religion of China 1t
leads to the care of parents which
every son is expected to bear as soon
as he arrives at maturity. Wife and
! children must give way for father and
mother. After the duty o. caring for
the living, comes the ancestral wor-
| ship which every man in China must
maintain while he lives. Therefore
the religion of China is first the tilial
obligation and next the worship OF
those who are dead and gone.
| went 10 a Buddhist temple on the
Chinese new years day. During the
half hour ! spent there there were
hundreds of all SOUS who came to
! make known to Budda their wants. |
/ suppose much money was that day
/ passed into the treasury. But this
! did not take the place of the ancestral
worship.
The Chinese language is without an
alphabet. Each character is a word,
or perhaps | may say syllable. But
l cannot distinguish the latter. for
what | would call one chracter and so
one word really represents several
| syllables which make the word. The
| language Is written in columns from
! top to bottom Of the page and begin
| ming on the right-hand side is read
from right to left. There are from 25,.
, 600 to 10000 characters in the Chinese
| language, of which the most learned
among them know and use about TO-
| 900. Nobody knows it all. Many OF
these words or syllable characters are
obsolete. The labor of learning the
language is prodigious. Even after
years of study the best men still EN-.
ploy teacher. Certainly this is nee
essary for all who translate and ali
who produce books or who are edi
tors. Teachers among the mission
aries will always need to be taught in
taking up new books or science, liter.
ature and philosophy, because an en-
tirely different set Of words may be
required All the oriental languages
are very difficult
Coolies a Separate Class.
| did not know until recently that
A, l. too,
are a separate class. 1t seems as the
Chinese moved eastward and APP
preached the sea line they found
body Of savages whom they slaught'
cred by the thousands. AT last one
body of them begged for life. promis'
ing themselves as servants of the con.
quering race forever They were
taken at their word and these are the
chair-bearers, jinricksha and wheel.
barrow coolies Of the present. The
work descends from father to son.
am told that many Of their womenkind
have bound feet OF the smallest. l
certainly see upon the Thibet road
from my windows workingwomen OF
the poorest who hold TO the walls and
trees for support, their feet being too
small to keep them going long at
time
For the same reason a rich Chinese
lady often spends years In her own
home without going out Rank re-
quires two fashions for her which she
does not desire to forego. Her feet are
bound tighter and tighter until they
are perhaps three inches long. or even
shorter. She wears pretty little silk
shoes embroidered most skillfuliy, and
IL she wants 70 move into another
room her servant carries her. Also
at least one fngernai! is allowed to
grow four, five, six inches long. and
this she protects by gold, silver or
ivory sheath. The shops display the
silver sheaths by the dozen.
The women paint their eyelids, lips
and cheeks very extravagantly. II
would be prettier II more delicately
done, but my way cannot be theirs
on this and other lines.