Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-07-22
A ROMANCE OF
MODERN CHINA
A "New Woman" of the Orient
Saved the Life of Her Hero, Mar
ried Him and Brought Him to
America-Living in Media.
BY CoRoLYN BULLEY

ONE cannot visit the little colony Of Chi
~ nese revolutionIsts in Media without dis
covering that there Is romance in the Orient
we'll as in the Occident. General Hwane
Hsng who led an unsuccessful insurreetion
Is there with the woman who helped him to
escape and then married him, and he Is sur
rounded by staff of able Chinese men and
women who are studying English and await
ing favorable opportunity for returning to
China with safety. General Hwang has not
learned much English yet, and he speaks
through Mr.. Tong, Of his staff. When
called General Hwang was uncommunlca-
tive, but Mr. Tong was vouble. While Mr..
Tong talked the General would walk about
! the room listening TO the strange tongue.
If we imagine the Chinese women are shut
up in their houses and firmly suppressed by
the men Of the country, we are much mis-
taken, says Mr.. Tong. Men and women
should balance each other as a pair Of scales,
is the Chinese saylnR-and Mr.. Tong thinks
| he sees little too much tipping in the feml-
| nine direction in modern China. At all
events, In the recent revolution women
played far more important role than the
outsider lmagines AS matter of fact there
was troop of feminine grenadiers who took
n dashing part in the actual fighting.
The woman who afterward married Cen
eral Hwang Hsing (the Chinese write lis and
pronounce It Sh) almost entirely managed the
financing Of the whole revolution. She was
revolutlonist, republlcist long before that
and used to address audiences of 1000 souls
or more on the subject of governmental re-
forms. There you are. One could hardly
call her botted-up woman, with nothing to
say for herself
And as for being confined to her parental
uthn IInya lo-
fore she married him) had taken Canton with
about 10 men from several thousand impe-
rial soldiers, and then, naturally unable to
hold It, had been subsequently cornered in n
small section of the city, where he and a
little handful of faithful compatriots were
putting up a hopeless fight and courting ex-
termination, this daring young woman ac-
tually penetrated in person to the house
where the general was barricaded argued
him out of his determination to die there for
his cause, which as difficult as reaching
him in the first place, and spirited him away
to Hongkong.
Prefers Media to the Cemetery
So that is really how it happens that Cen
eral Hwang, with his wife and little son
(and with "a price on his head"), is spending
a quiet summer at Media, learning to speak
English, instead of an even quieter one in
"The Sacred Resting Place of the Seventy
Heroes"
Had the Ideas and the ideals of the compa-
triots been carried out in the suppostltous
republic now established, China might be
leading the world in the feminist movement
1t was certainly their plan to give women a
part in the government, and for time there
We're in fact, feminine Senators. But by this
time women's rights have gone by the board
with the rest of the truly republican meas
ures instituted directly after the revolution
Mr. Tong claims, by the way, that the first
suffrage paper in the world was edited by
a woman in China.
Mr. Tong says we Americans are often
grossly mistaken in our ideas of Chinese
social customs because we hear of the facts,
but not of the conditions that Justify them.
For example take the selling of girls into
slavery. Now, he says, the Chinese people
look down on that custom and hate It Just
as we do here and 1t is only the terribly
poor, the starving man. who would sell his
daughter. Also, when she becomes OF age, at
1s, she is automatically freed anyway So
selling her into slavery only means having
her temporarily adopted. as 1t were by peo-
pie who must clothe and feed her in return
for the little work they can get out OF her.
At one time the Manchu Government tried
result that the deadly poor to whom the
stork presented female infants trooped up to
the infanticide rock and dropped the dlsap-
pointing parcel over,
"a Very Unattractive Bunch"
If the women of China wanted to go about
more In public they could very easily do It,
Mr., Tong thinks. But It isn't so pleasant in
China; 1t is dustier and conveyances are less
convenient. Besides. there nobody wants to
go off into the sparsely settled parts of the
country. we do here. That is because
these places full of prates-yes, pirates
whom Mr.. Tong describes as very unat-
tractive bunch"
There is governmental efficiency for youl
Land and sea pirates galore. and assassins
and cut-throats in the cities
The compatriots were endeavoring to clean
the country of these and other pests, and
they do not feel that good government for
China is yet a forlorn hope.
"But we are not a people like the MexI-
cans" says Mr., Tong, always complaining
and tearing down"
The Chinese are, most OF all. a peaceful,
thoughtful lot OF men, not from inertia, but
because they have learned from experience
in the same turbulent age OF Europe in which
the French had IA revolutions the Chinese
got away with 47!-that wars are a devas-
tatng, foolish Indulgence. So the Chinese
compatriots, like our own President, are
going in strong for watchfully waiting In
the meantime the autocratic Dictator-Presl-
dent, Yuan Shi-Kai, seems to be breaking IN
every good thing started or accomplished b.
the revolution. It may all end well, but It
looks like a waste of time m ma