Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1911-09-21
HOLD GRAVES SACRED
CHINESE ARE EXTRAORDINARILY
CAREFUL OF THEIR DEAD.
Rerevence Carried TO an Extreme
In the Yellow Country-Case in
Point Shows How Obstinate
They Can Be.

Better strike Chinaman than step
upon his ancestors grave. They are
finding that out to the great detriment
Of industry and agriculture all over
Cathay-for the Chinaman will simply
not allow railroad or a pillow to pass
through what he suspects fs the dust
Of one of his honorable forbears and
there is no condemnation law in China
TO force him to sell the graves.
The instance Of the Russian rail-
road from Hardin to Port Arthur,
which made 26-mile detour to avoid
the ancient Manchu tombs at Muk-
den, has been often cited to show the
expense and trouble that may arise
from this cause. This was many
years ago and there seems to be a
popular idea, even among old foreign
residents of China, that the going for
the right of way men and the build
ers Of railways is much easier now
than then. AS a matter of fact, since
people are dying right along and the
number of graves increasing as a con-
sequence, it is very doubtful if condi-
lions are not becoming worse rather
than better. The Chinese have ac-
cepted the railway as a convenience
in transportation, not as a destroyer
of their beloved graves. They have
shown the greatest readiness to
patronize it once it is built, but they
never have ceased, and never will
cease. putting obstacles in the way Of
line that disturbs so much as a
single isolated ancestral resting place.
Many Of the foreign educational in
situations of China have been years
acquiring the land for their grounds
principally on account of graves-and
| the blue print maps of some of their
holdings reminds one of the drawing
of the original gerrymander" CON
gressional district in Massachusetts,
The Canton Christian college. in South
China, has a striking monument to
the obduracy of solitary grave-hold-
er in the form of an upright cylinder
of yellow clay in the. middle of its
basketball field. Not the Decorating
touch of the feet Of the hated "for-
eign devils" not the turmoil of the
mad games that surge around it, not
even lue IdCL THAT us elevated crest
is occasionally utilized by an ir
Teverent student as a coign of van
tage from which to toss a goal, has
led the old woman that owns it to ac-
cept the generous offer made her by
the college authorities for her little
six feet of soil" Her husband used
to sleep with all the babies crying,
she says philosophically, and it is
hardly likely that a little noise will
trouble him now. He will let her know
through the priests when he is dis
turbed and until then she knows that
he will rest better where he is. OF
course, the obvious thing for the col
lege authorities to do would be to pay
visit to the geOmancers and arrange
that the old lady should be instructed
that the "fengshul" decreed that her
late husband would rest quieter in
some other place; but as "subtlety"
of this class is hardly in the line of a
Christian institution, it is not unlike
ly that the strange looking cylinder
of yellow clay may star the campus
basketball field until the game old
lady is herself numbered with her an
cestors.