The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1913-01-23
A FEW KIND WORDS
FOR THE CHINESE

FOR THE CHINESE
1@s
An ambitious writer for the press,
sns indeed who is a member OF the
vkan OF this newspaper. witnessed at
= private seance the other day the
wonderful magic of Ching Ling Foo,
3 Chinese gentlenarS who manages to
pun down the largest salary paid to
anybody in. his 1fne in the whole
world, despite his Oriental unsophis-
tication-
Now this is enough Of Ching Ling
Foo, since it gives the time the place
and the occasion. These observations
are toucntn' upon and appertainin' to
certain 1ews of Chinese custom and
.o1aaracteH as opposed to occidental
custom and character, 4f1e said writer
having drawn the contrast in 8. man
ner most unoomp1imentary as it
seems to MS 10 Mr.. Ching. his con-
4anpora<ies and his ancestors
Our friend complains, for instance,
that the chinese women wear trousers
though we believe he used the
huneay apnaE1ation pants. Balk this
Is no PROOF of infer1ority. In this
eountry men wear trousers. and are
said to be most intelligent And
trousers are certainly more conven-
lent than skirts. The allegation of
inrerioraty does not lie, apparently,
against Mr.. Ching and his friends in
the matter of trousers for women And
We say nothing OF the circumstance
that the wiser sort Of women in this
country and Great Britain want to don
them.
Ou1seer4sn1 -as-s0rrUwful because the
Villain IA ehinese Drama l. sell
dom punished In the play The
audience secs his .viIainy and
xoes home confident that he
win be overtaken by his rnisdeeds
in due season But in American dra-
ma the villain Is always punished. in
plain view: right on the stage
Again we submit to all candid men.
that the burden is not on the Chinese.
In real life the villains are not in fact
visibly punished in full view of the au-
dience, even though Mr.nLorimer has
been turned out 81 the United States
Senate, and Mr.. Becker has been sent
10 the death chaar. Christian theology
teaches that mems evil acts may new
err overtalre them in this life. The
American must see his bad man
soundly spanked. right on the stage,
or he will go out believing that in
fduify has broken the bank. But the
tchfnaman, bringing to the matter the
quality of his reflective mind. says.
This man has sinned, defying Bud
dina and nature He win surely be
punished in the exact measure of his
orense.''
whether or not our friends criti-
cisn OF Chinese music in sound, we
will leave to the critical reader. Those
who have heard an ambitious song
stress hard at work OF a. Sunday morn
ing before breakfast, with a full scale
TO labor with. may not believe that
the Chinese are out of it because c<
their pentatonic. or five tone scale.
which Is q sort of royal musical flush,
as HwFre2y And tna tHesChinese i'm
itats women I'm theff- acting means
nothing, necessarily. except the pur-
suit of the highest ideal. OF course
II may be argued that it would be bet
xo1es.s an we do in this country, but
perhaps Mr.. Ching and his relatives
are afraid OF destroying the ideal.
The Chinese are too old fashioned.
They have practiced too long the vir-
tues OF thrift. They have devoted
themselves too arduously to labor
This is why we have to keep them out
Of this country. They work so many
hours and live on so little that no
American could compete with them
for jobs. The Chinese manage to dig
out of every square mile of land, with
hand labor, the support of 500 per-
sons, while in this country with the
best labor saving machinery, we have
hard digging to support 27 people On
y square mile.
The moral is this: NJ Ching
doubtless feels the same Kindly con-
tempt for the occider6 and its ways.
that the occident has for the fowery
Kingdom and its ancient customs.