Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1908-06-04
NEW VOL. 43.-NO. rs
The Chtnaman's Diet.

A conspicuous factor in the battle Of
life is omniyorousness, or diversity Of
feeding. That animal which has but
a single plant for instance, which it can
use for food may be snnihilsted by
frost or grub or any any other cause
which would remove the plant for a
single season. That which feeds in
Discriminatory on all plants viii End
abundant sustenance under more sd.
verse circumstances. That whose
stomach receives vegetable or animal
food with equal favor has still bet.
ter chance for surviving. and that
which can catch the most various sort
Of prey is more apt to have prey al.
ways at It's command than that whose
powers in chase, whose courage or
whose strength can overtake or over
come on'y the most slow-moving or
weakest animals. Man, the most per-
feet of animals, and the ore who in
the present conditions Of the earth
could survive all others, has attained
to his position Of mastery largely be-
cause he is, of all animals, the most
omnivorous.
Of ali the varieties Of man the Ash
attic, especially the Chinaman, is most
diverse in his food. All is meat to
him-animal or vegetable, in the air,
on the earth or in the waters under
the earth. He can gorge himself with
Joy on the abundant meat diet of Eng
lishmen; he can dine comfortably aud
happily upon a brace of mice, or exc
out life for weeks upon few hsndfuls
Of rice. Aud all the time he can
work without cessing. BE can pack
more of his kind on an acre Of ground
than any New York tenement lie can
show and live there in what be re.
CARDS as toIerable comfort. In this
he has precisely the same advantage
over the white men as the European
had over the original inhabitants Of
this country and as the Englishmsn
had over the natives of Australia.
1t is really, therefore, those chsrac.
teristics Of the Asistio which We most
despiss, and which we regard as con-
stituting his inferiority to ourselves
his miserable little figure, his cheap
and pinched and wretched way Of liv'
ing, his slavish and tireless industry,
his indifference to high and costly
pleasures which our habit Of genera
tions almost makes necessities, his ca
pacity to live in swarms in places
where the white man would rot if he
did not sufocate-all these make him
most formidable rival for ultimate
survival Of the fttest, not only in
America, but wherever he may gain
footing.
Our ancestors emerged from the
broad and roomy environment OF pas
toral and savage life only few CEN
turies ago, and our life-sustaining fac
ulties represent what has been stored
up by heredity in the period which
has since elapsed. The Eastern Ash
attic emerged from these conditions at
a period so remote that no human
record or tradition can be found 30
old as to refer TO a time when China
and India were not too populous for
the conditions Of savage life. The
accumulated experience Of countless
ages is, therefore, stored up in the
Asiatic's food getting and food saving
capacity, and those ages properly and
fairly represent his superiority over
US in the battle for the survival Of
the fttest, if that battle is TO be fought
in fair field with no favor, in open
and undisturbed competition.