Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-09-13
SEEING THE FAIR
 IN DETAIL

How It Seems to Hold $1o,oo0 Peach
 blow Vase In Your Hands-Chinese
 Treasures of Great Price-Getting
 New Ideas About China = Li Hung
 Chang's Confusion About Missionary
 Claims - A Chinese City Block In
 Miniature The Carpenter's Shop.
 The Jewellers Store-The Tea House.
 A Rice Store-Home of a Chinese
 Gentleman-Hat and Shoe Store-The
 Umbrella Maker.
 ESPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE BY
 MARK BENNITT.l
 MT. Wang unlocked the big glass door and placed in my hands peach blow vase eight inches high valued at S10,O0O. My chief sensation was not one of admiration, but of fear that I might drop it. Many better man than has dropped $10,Ooo. Some have dropped it in wheat and some in corn and cotton. A friend of mine dropped AkS sWdLCA 44 bO1AG WACGL OAA AONAA IL again the next spring, but sums of $1O,- 900 dropped in grain are not so easily recovered. turned the vase over to see where the value might be secreted. A delicate mottling was all that could discover. was then permitted to re- turn it to the custodian representing the great Chinese government. Then \ was handed another vase of the fa- nous peachblbw make, value $S,O00, and, as if I had not already had hon. ors enough, third was thrust upon me, value $6,O0O. Tn a space of five minutes I examined $24,O00 worth of peachblow vases, three of the greatest treasures of the Chinese government, the product of lost art in the coloring of pottery. The vases are 300 years old and far more scarce than sums of $1OOOo, strange as this may appear to the inexperienced among us. You, too, may see them in the Palace of Liberal Arts, which in this instance is palace of lost arts.
 China is an unopened book of won ders to most of us. The great Chinese wall between the empire and other nations is the complex language that produces bradn flag and discourage ment to most of those who attempt to master its tntricacies and entangae- ments. But here are men speaking the English tongue whose mastery of the Chinese is equally facile. Wong Kai Kah, the imperial vice comnis- sioner to the worlds fair, is a Harvard graduate Francis A. Carl, the other imperial vice commissioner, is an Eng iishman who has been moEe than twenty years in China Mir. D. Perce- bois, the secretary of the commission, is a Frenchman who has been thirty years in China and is intimately fa- miliar with the affairs of the country, owing to his high connection with the customs service. Mr. !. A. Berthat 1s another Frenchn1anw has been twen- Ity years in the empire and is here doing valuable service in dispensing a correct knowledge of the Flowery Kingdom. The catalogue which Mr. Percebois has just completed is one of the most valuable books on China in the English language, for the reason that the ex-- hibit contains something of everything important to the Chinese, and the book describes them all.
 China is our greatest missionary field. It is no secret that the Chinese do not like our missionaries. Their aggressive ways ape irritating. It was Li Hung Chang who said: You send us your Presbyterians, your Catholics, your Methodists and Baptists, your Episco- palians and others. You all claim one Christ, yet each missionary says his way is the best Now, which are we Ito believe? China has her own re- ligion. Why should we adopt another about which we are so much con- fused 7''
 But the work goes on from year to year and decade to decade, and wheth- er worshiping Confucius, Tau or Bud aha the Chinese are a wonderful peo- pie, a fact proved by the vast exhibit here in the Palace of Liberal Arts I can scarcely name a single article for personal or household use or adorn- ment not here catalogued. I think perhaps the Americans have more girn- cracks, but the Chinese seem to have overlooked nothing that might meet human need, even to their squaCe holed money that is worth but tsn for one, but sells here at three for cents
 Let's walk around this miniature city block, which so graphically shows life just as it is in China. Here is carpen- ter's shop, with carpenters in minia- ture. A shrine is at the back, for the Chinese are pious people and vener- ate their ancestors, whose virtues arc ever before them. One of these car penters is blaming 8 square stick. An other is yielding an ax. A third Is gluing together the parts of frame. The proprietor is talking to customer, who is distinguished by the bright fan which he carries. peeping through the lattice of the upper story we may see a painter at work upon a half painted window sash. Could any scene be more commonplace? Yet how interest