Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1876 — Chinese New Year’s Day in Burlington. [ARTICLE]

Chinese New Year’s Day in Burlington.

Gentle reader—we say that because we wanted to begin with aqttotation, and that expression sounded about as familiar as any we could think of. Gentle reader, yesterday was New Year’s Day. Fact. - ——" ’Bh ’u ma’nyappy r’turns; We never knew it until yesterday, and then Sam Lung told us. Sam Lung is the child of the Flowery Empire, the al-mond-eyed Celestial who does, fine washing and clear starching at his humble laundry on Fifth street. Terms cash. Children in arms not admitted. Free list positively suspended. Every night a bonanza. That's what kind ot a fellow Sam Lung is. You see, we happened into -see if Mr. Lung could wash and ■clear-starch a shirt for us while we waited for it. We were in a kind of a huny, you see, and didn’t want to take the time and shin around and borrow a clean garment. And it’s extravagant for one to have a thousand shirts just for one's self to puton one. Well, Sam Lung managed to make us understand that be was of tee impression that the laundrinical feat which we suggested was beyond bis ability'to perform. Then we wanted to know if he couldn’t wash a shirt and iron it ou us just like we had our boots blacked. Sam Lung was overcome. He wept. We had never seen a Chinaman weep before, and we were muoh interested in witnessing the operation, so that we watched him intently and forbore to intrude upon his grief. The way a Chinaman cries is this: he first draws hack the dips until the teeth are uncovered. Then'the mouth is extended, the corners lifting toward the eyes, which are partially closed, the face is puckered up with wrinkles, and the hands are placed on tee sides. The whole body then shakes convulsively, the breath escaping in quick, convulsive snorts, like. The process is very similar to Christian laughing, and to one ‘Unaccustomed to Chinese customs might be easily mistaken for laughter. But we know. He was crying. Presently we fixed it . all ‘up—(heyj None of your business) and left our washing with Sam Lung. Then he told us he couldn’t do our washing yesterday, because it was New Year's aay. We.got interested and told him to sit down and tell us all about it. He tried to tell us and we tried to understand.. He talked broken English, and we talked a little broken China, about as much as you can see in an average alley. We said: “ Olt, bell good, yolly welly bow wow thlee bundle times, whoopy doopy yawhy wawhy; yoop, yoop?” And Sam Lung sand: “How?” And we said: “Oh, allee same like Mellican man; hunky dunky, whoop chow; turn turn, bixzening; makeehoopee hoopee some time, don’t it?" .. An<l Barn Lung said:: “ How ?” And that is all we know about the Chinese New Year. Wc suppose, being a lone Chinaman in tliis metropolis; Mr. Lung had to make <U his- Cans on himself, and punish his own cake and wine, and carry himself home if he gave out at the last call, and wish himself all the customary things, and thank himself, and drink egg nog all.by himself, and have a happy-go-lucky, 'lonesome time of it. The fact is he ought ito speak United States, and then he could go out with the beys, who would be only too glad to have two New Year’s days i* the yea*. We have no doubt that lots of them would be glad to help him keep a Chinee New Year’s day. 'ftie “ Elkhorn Glee dub” would be only too delighted to sing for him, and yet he is deprived of all this enjoyment because he can’t talk United States'. How strange, how passing strange it is, that men will speak Chinese when it is so much easier to speak English.—Burlington Hawk-Eye.

The steep tinned roofs in Quebec delight the Coroner. On New Year’s Day a widow named Baptise was killed by an avalanche of ice and snow from a house in Des Fosses street, and a lady who was paving visits was knocked senseless and suft’erei a dislocation of the hip by a similar chute. She was put into a cariole and driven te her home, out just as she was being lifted out of the vehicle another avalanche fr£l on her and again reduced her to insensi&lity.

A Bebuh correspondent of the Koi-a-Mie Zeiteung disputes Prince Bismarck’s remarks concerning the inferiority of the Gerpian and fihe superiority of the EngKsh press. He says that since the days of the Erfurt Parliament, when young M. von Bismarck -began his warfare against newspaper men, he has never had a good opinion of German journalism. Wallenstein, adds the eomespondent, could not bear to hear a cock crow, and Bismarck has a like antipathy (toward the press.' Thebe are nineteen merchants’ mills in operation in Minneapolis, with 190 run of stone and a capacity of 4,500 bbls, of flour per day. A man fit Binghamton, cured himself nt consumption by chewing oak baik. . .