Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1897 — Chinese Wife Trade. [ARTICLE]

Chinese Wife Trade.

The Chinese In Australia and elsewhere send home to China for their wives, and bargaining is quite a matter of business. The price of wives is said to be falling, because the supply Is exceeding the demand. The Ohlnumen, when they take a notion to marry, write to a matrimonial agent In Hong Kong. One letter was as follows: “I want a wife. She must be a maiden under 20 years of age, aud must not have left her father’s house. She must also have never rend a book, and her eyelashes must be half an Inch in length." There is a regular tariff for these wives. The price of a Chinese woman delivered in Sidney Is $l9O, but two Chinese women only cost $260; therefore, the Chinese import the women in couples. The Importer never sees the women before they arrive, and then he generally selects the best-looking one. Th other is shown around a number of well-to-do Chinese, and after they huve inspected her she is submitted to what may be called public auction. The Mead Cycle Company, Chicago, is the original house to sell reliable bicycles at low prices direct to the rider. They have built up a large business by th?ir honorable dealings and have won thi entire confidence of their customers. As is usually the case, they have many imi’atora who seek to share in the reflected bght of the house which won its prestige by conceiving this popular idea and then carrying it out. The Mead Cycle Co., Chicago, simply ask the public to believe ''.hat the house which leads and controls the best sources of supply is the best bouse to do business with. A Scottish member of Parliament has delivered a lecture on golf, in which he traced the game to the Garden of Eden.