Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-08-14
WHERE LIFE Is CHEAP
THE ASIATIC >, CONCEPTION AS
SHOWN At CANTON.
Difference Manifested Between Oriental
and the Occidental Idea Of
Existence.

Canton tChina) Correspondence Boston Transcript.
The cheapness of aAsiatic life is the i'm
pressive fact in connection with the news
OF the day in this most populous of Chinese
cities. There is a terrible famine raging
in the West River district, but nobody
seems greatly disturbed Two Chinese vii
lagos near here went to war with each
other few days ago. killing OF a part OF
the population. but the imperial govern
ment Of the Son of Heaven does not seem
to care SO long as its own authority and
revenues are not curtailed. This contrast
between the cheap life Of Asia with the
valued life of America accounts for most
OF the irrepressible conflict between the
orient and the occident
The California labor unionists want to
ne values his hours, which are the measure
or his life, too lightly, and he in turn wants
TO tear up the steel rails wherever capital
ISIS or the western world succeed in lay
man at the lever of an engine to accom-
pllsn TOO much, to go too far, to carry too
many passengers. In America the zeal
economy Is to save time; in Asia human
be little more regarded than the water that
runs through faucet, where the city sup
ply never gives out, and meters are I'M
known Commodities are everything; lie
is nothing.
Blindness Viewed Calmly.
The tourist in this strange city Is taken
to jewelers. shop, where little fleece
Feathers are worked upon metal with such
extreme delicacy that the occupation is
SAID by the guide to produce blindness in
four or five years. AT least this is what
the shopkeeper himself explains to pros
pective customers, pointing to the young
men at the benches, who, he says, will not
De able TO see In a few years. 1t is incom-
prehensible to the Chinese mind that the
western world would not enjoy ornaments
known to be made out of the eyes Of men.
During the present famine, fathers have
brought their thirteen-year-old daughters
down to Canton to sell to any purchasers
haggling over prices as If disposing Of
basket, and on the completion of the trade,
parent and daughter part without the
slightest SHOW of feeling. They have both
been reared in traditions which make this
perfectly in order. Among the twenty-four
famous examples of filial piety is that OF
the man who was about to bury alive
three-year-old daughter because he could
not afford to keep her as well as his old
mother. This virtue was rewarded by the
unexpected discovery of treasure pur-
posely placed in the intended grave by a
good genie. Cheap life looks toward the
past.
This city Is varously estimated to con-
tain from one and a half to three million
people Half a million, 1t is thought, live
In boats, and certainly for miles along the
water front the sampans are packed in
just as close as they can be made to lie
whenever steamer comes along the little
sampans. propelled by poles and oars, fee
from before the mighty steamer as fast
as the means at their command will carry
them. Most of the work on the water
seems to be done by women. and nearly
every woman has baby strapped to her
back, with others crawling around in the
hollow Of the little sloop. The baby gets
hItt
Its mother goes; she cannot take a step
without its going too, a desideratum long
unsuccessfully aimed at by the fondled
babies of the occident.
Agile Chinese Women.
1 saw one Chinese woman taking such
long strokes at her oars to get out of the
way of our steamer that the sleeping baby
on her back would open his little brown
eyes each time that she threw herself for
ward to get new leverage on the oars,
only to shut his eyelids again during the
long backward stroke. Open and shut,
with the regularity of clock work, went
the little fellows eyes as the boat moved
over considerable space of water. These
Chinese women are excellent sailors wheth-
er in the little sampans or the larger junks
of commerce. An American sailor who
happened to be on our boat says that they
are unexcelled. The agility with which
they jump about wholly Indifferent to the
weight they carry on their backs, lifting
bulky packages, polling with main strength,
and Jumping from one side of the boat to
the other in the roughness of the sea, con-
stantly impresses the beholder with g GER
tain admiration. The Chinese are not lazy
And still. as cheap their labor is, and
as they take to water, the white
man Is beating them at the business The
steamer on which l came here brought I'D
hundred Chinese passengers, most
ly third-class The charge for them is
about 16 cents in our money from Hong
kong to Canton, distance Of ninety miles,
and the manager of a rival company tells
me that there Is large profit in the bust
ness They are packed in like sardines,
sleep on the floors and eat what they bring
with them. The sampan cannot compete
with this. The f1rst-class passengers in
cluded one rich Chinese official, who had
his food served in his room. and six white
persons who sat with the captain about his
table. Many trips the captain makes alone.
and implies that the f1rst-class service is
maintained more for appearance sake than
for profit. Each passenger has a square
room to himself. while the group pass the
evening in the main saloon much as would
a similar party at a small country hotel.
where there was nothing else to do.