The Newtown bee., 1904-05-27

seem to prefer the company of one another, and so congregate in the regular opium dens. In this one there were only men,-Of course the thing becomes immeasurably worse when men and women both mingle, as they do in many places. l forgot to men, tion the presence of beautiful, but climbed on the shoulders of the men, "meOwing," for them to share their pleasures with her, and only satisfied when the opium smoke was blown in her face. I don't know how long she had been addicted to this habit, but it seemed to agree with her, for she was slick, and shining. By the way, sus- pect that the Chinese must be fond of cats, for I saw them almost every where, and while they were not fat or lazy looking, they all had the appear not see any sort of dog, however, during the evening.
 Our next visit, tho not so interest ing to me, was from other points more agreeable. The guide took us to the most famous Chinese musician in the town, and sitting down in his little, bare, unfurniShed, but cleanly paper ed and whitewashed den, we listened to his playing on six different Chinese musical instruments. The "Chinese piano." (Zither) was the first, piano without a key board, with the wires stretched from side to side on pegs set in a frame similar to the square piano arrangement, except some were dia- gOnal, and there seemed to be no bass notes. This he played by hitting the strings with two slender pieces of rat tan, peculiarly twisted at one end. similar to the rattan or whatever the stuff is that your older chair bottoms were woven of. He managed 'March- ing Through Georgia" quite success fully. Then he gave us some examples of the Chinese violin, an instrument with long handle, and the violin part diameter. It is two Stringed, and the bow is between the two strings, in- stead of outside of both. Then came flute, a mandolin, and banjo, of pe- culiar Chinese make and sound. There is said to be no other musician in Chinatown who can play so many in- StrumentS. or who can manage Ameri- can tunes at all. Our visit to the Chinese Theater was amusing. A play with them runs for a month, a chap ter being enacted every night. The orchestra sits on the back of the stage. There is no curtains, and no scenery, save the few seats occupied by the players. The front of the house was the woman's balcony, which only had a few occupants, and two or three rows of seats on each end of the stage were also filled. The stage seats are, on the whole, considered best. No women are permitted to act, so the fe- male parts are all played by men or boys dressed and made up to resemble women. One of these women imper- senators was so skilfully gotten up, that 1 should never have dreamed that 'she" was "he," if I had not been told. don't know much about Chinese women, but this one, so far as I could judge by voice and everything else, the makeup was perfect. From my standpoint, I shouldn't consider the acting much, but it evidently car. ried the audience, and as that is the final and only test of acting, suppose it must have been fine. Much of it was Operatic, consisting of singing, ac- cOmpanied by the most internal bang ing of drums and clashing cymbalS and wailing of stringed instruments that one almost wished that they might become temporarily deaf. Most in our party would have gladly sacri- feed their noses as well as their ears
 
 along better than many, inasmuch as the Odor of incense that pervaded all the nicer places, and which is diStaSte- full to many, is rather pleasant to me. The theatrical costumes were gorge ous, and the jewelry worn was real. Some of the costumes are said to be worth several hundreds Ot dollars. We went in to visit one family where the children, six in number, go to Bap- tist mission school and they were as bright and pretty as any American children could be, and twice as funny and amusing. They all wore na- tive costumes, and they spelled their names for us, giving their ages and sang several songs: "Our Country 'tis of Thee" "Halleujah, Amen," and several others. They do not speak English very we'll, but still they can make themselves understood and can understand anything that they wish to. Our last visit was to be to a Chinese banqueting hall, Cor high grade restaurant.) At two, we were refused admittance, as two of the nu- merous Chinese secret societies were holding banquetS where no white spec tators could be permitted. About 400 in each case. We did catch a glimpse of one or two high grade Chinese wom- en however, in their black satin coats and trousers, their heads mass of gold and jewels. At the third place we were m ore successful, and were there in time to see the final end of banquet, and jollier lot of fellows it would be hard to find than those Chi nese were. One of the head dignitar- ies insisted on our joining him, and we were given tiny glasses, that would hold just about a thimble full, ,-I just touched mine, partly to please our self appointed host, and partly from curiosi- ty. It was as pale as the very weak est tea, very sweet, and should judge containing considerable alcohol sort of Chinese gin. The nuts and candy were nice, likewise the cake. I have present of pair of mahogany chop sticks which will show you when I get home. The prices at these stylish Chinese restaurants are quite astonish- ing. At one the proprietor told us that the cheapest meal he served was s3, and from that up. After the ban quet they played peculiar Chinese came Two WO1lld stand mn md cOI1nt