Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 204, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1915 — RIVER LIFE in CHINA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RIVER LIFE in CHINA

IF YOU visit Hongkong or Canton or Shanghai you will find thousands of people who spend their lives from first to last on water. Both in Hongkong and Canton a population equal to that of a considerable town lives on little boats called sampans, and never by any chance do these water dwellers set foot on land if they can avoid it, the Hongkong correspondent of the Dundee Courier writes. Nor can they get back quickly enough to their native element if business should call them from it for % little time. They are unhappy on land; one can read it alike in their carriage and their faces. Even the tiniest of children dislike dry land. But see them aboard a rocking cockleshell of a boat, and, if you are tender hearted, you have heart tremors the first time or two. They are able to do little more than walk, yet they balance perilously on the narrow side of the boat and perform feats that would turn a white mother’s hair gray in a day. But these Chinese mothers do not turn gray; they do not even look at their offspring. For one reason, they are too busy; for another, there is not the faintest need for them to worry. What is bred in the bone comes out even in the flesh of a sampan-bom youngster, and ability to get about a rocking boat at the age of fifteen months or so is bred in the bone of these babies. Girl Babies of Little Account. Besides, babies (girl babies at least) are of very little account. If one of them should fair overboard she may be pulled out again before she is drowned, and If she is not caught up quickly enough the loss is not greatly serious from their point of view. You may regard this as exaggerated, but It is overstated no whit. The writer remembers successive days—when he was new to the far East, and took notice of such things—seeing first a girl baby and then a hen fall into t£e water. The mishap to the baby caused no excitement whatever, but in the case of the hen there arose a mighty screeching. The mother and grandmother and what may have been either

aunts or sisters set up a tremendous row which did not subside until some time after the frightened hen had been rescued. The loss of a baby was neither here nor there; the loss of a hen would hare been serious from an economic point of view. Whether among land or water people in China, girls are not greatly wanted and the addition to a family which has already a sufficiency of girls of another of the female sex is counted almost a calamity. But it is a calamity which is easily got over. One hates to set down the horrid fact, but the unwanted baby is quite often got rid of by the simple expedient of dumping it overboard. Especially does this take place with much frequency in Canton. In the British city of Hongkong the practice is not so commonly followed, because the authorities have a swift way of dealing with unnatural parents of this stamp. But it is not yet stamped out and probably never will be. The best that can be said is that fear of the law keeps it within reasonable bounds (if any bounds can be reasonable in such a connection), and that those parents who do risk the penalty of the law have at least been educated to the point of dumping the bodies with for them, quite commendable decency. They do not now drop them overboard and allow them to be picked up or no as chance determines. They dump them on buoys, where they are sure to be seen and so secure burial for them. Life Cheap In the Far East. Dumping on buoys is even today so common that the newspapers do not

think it worth their while to chronicle the fact. But then, life is much cheaper out in the far East than it is at home. Why, we have epidemics of, say, smallpox here in Hongkong during which a couple of hundred cases, and goodness knows how many deaths, will be reported in a week. And no one except the authorities takes much notice. Mention of the hen above may make the reader wonder what manner of boats these are and what manner of people and animals and birds are congregated therein. Bless you, in little more space than is available in an ordinary rowing boat these sampan people will crowd three generations of people—anything up to ten —and hens and a dog. These at least. Don’t ask me where and how they all sleep. Even if they are packed as clothes are packed in a holiday bag, with the smaller articles —the children in this case—wedged Into any available corner and crushed in the process, there does not seem room enough for even one to get legs healthily stretched. But they do manage it and keep healthy and thrive tremendously on it. The housing problem for them is readily solved. To passengers aboard steamers they will sell eggs or vegetables or pots and pans, or silk, or anything else they may wish. They may not have the particular article you require, but they will either get it or find another sampan where it can be secured. If you go to Canton they will ferry you across the river very cheaply—if you know the ropes. Chinese passengers will be carried across for ten cash, which is one tenth of a cent Mex., or two fifths of one cent U. S. currency. Work that out for yourself and don’t talk for strikes for a generation after. But the European passenger, who is not initiated, is fair prey. Will Squeeze you If he cao. The cost to him is as much as can be squeezed out of him. No fiftieth part of a penny for him. If he looks a stranger 50 cents Mex. or more will be asked, and if he protests, the pries may come down to half. Even then the sampan people have done a famous stroke of business for that day. And the best of Europeans count

themselves lucky if they are taken across for less than ten cents. Well, twopence is not famous pay for half an hour's hard pulling. The old grandmother takes command in all things. Girls may not be wanted in China, but if they live to be old they are venerated. Indeed, veneration for old people and ancestors is one of the most admirable traits in the Chinese character. And what magnificent water women they are. I have been in a sampan in dangerous weather, with a typhoon threatening (and I should never have been there had it not been absolutely necessary; don’t take me for a hero). A fierce gusty wind was blowing and all the time the boat looked like being swamped. But the way in which that old woman gave her orders and anticipated every gust of more than usual strength was entirely admirable. The sail would be raised a little way, to the vast mental discomfort of the passenger, who was vastly afraid, and down it would come with a rattle on her order Just before the wind caught the boat and sent it careening along at an alarming pace. Mind you, there was a man aboard, a son-in-law; I have yet to see a grandfather—but he counted for less than nothing. He smoked all through the trying time. He also smokes when the weather ia fine. Sometimes, when no breeze la about, he will take the tiller, but that is because the old women are wanted at the oars. Ido not know where the old men go, nor have 1 met anyone who does know, but they do not at least die of premature strain at the heart induced by overwork.

ON THE YANGTZE- KING.