Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1908-12-17

A cynic has said that our minds are
ruled by catch-words, and there is
certainly this amount of truth in the
statement, that ones mental image OF
place is usually based upon some
telling phrase which has stuck, once
heard, in the memory, and become in
separately associated, rightly or wrong
iy, with the locality to which it os-
tensibly refers.
The Greenland of my fancy. thanks
TO mind exceedingly retentiye OF
childish lessons, has for its natural
features icy mountains and very little
else. That coral strand, of a deli
cate pink shade, encircled the conti-
nent of India like q fairy zone was a
cherished belief only shattered when |
first travelled to the east and wondered
why it was called shiny.
But there are times when the fa-
miliar phrase is more than justified,
and preconceived notions are startling
ly indorsed by first actual impressions.
Every schoolboy knows that China is
inhabited by "teeming millions" and
defy the most felicitous of phrase
makers with two words more succinct-
Iy to summarize such a first glimpse
of a Chinese city as Is afforded, let us
say, to the traveller from Hongkong
who approaches Canton up the Chu-
kiang river
In the west the over-crowding of
cities is a problem which has come to
be regarded as amongst the most
pressing and perpleXing of all that
confront the social reformer. But
compared with cities of the east, and
of China especially, those of the west
may almost be regarded as depopu-
lated. Only those who have penetrated
the innermost purlieus of Chinese
city can conceive the degree of con-
gestion in which it is possible for a
human community to live. In the
great Chinese towns it is literally true
that the population overfiows its con-
fines, the result sometimes being, as
at Canton, those extraordinary floating
slums which choke the riverside and
form at once the most picturesque
and most pestilent feature of the city's
aspect.
Stand beside the imperial custom
house at Canton and let the eye
range down the river towards Hong
kong. AS far as the sight can reach
lie boats, boats, and again boats.
These are no ordinary craft, mere YES
sells of transport plying hither and
thither, but the countless homes of
myriad Chinese, in which millions of
human beings have been born, have
lived, and have died. They are the
dwellings of the very poor, who live in
them practically free from rent taxes,
and other burdens of the ordinary citi-
zen
The Tankia (Which means boat
dwellers), as the denizens of these
floating houses are called form a sort
of caste apart from the rest of the
Cantonese. The shore.dwellers re
gard them as belonging to a lower so.
cial order; and indeed they have
many customs, peculiar to themselves
which mark them as a separate com
munity. How the swarming masses OF
them contrive to support existence is
a mystery, but their chief mode of en-
pioyment Is in carrying merchandise
and passengers from place to place
In some cases the daughters of the
family go ashore to work In factories
as do the girls Of other countries; but
the years earnings Of Chinese fac
tory girl would scarce suffice to buy
a single hat for her western sister II