Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1885 — NO FLAT-IRONS IN CHINA. [ARTICLE]

NO FLAT-IRONS IN CHINA.

How the Chinamen Took to the Laundry . s I Business. Many people believe that the average Chinaman of New York comes over from the Flowery Kingdom an adept laundryman. Nothing is more opposed to the truth. In China there are no cuffs, collars,., -t-bosoms whatever. Ironing is an unknown art. Bleaching is effected by leaving the cotton, linen, or silk in the sunshine. A flat-iron, therefore, is in China a rar a avis. As washing is a purely physical labor, involving Ho intelligence whatever, the social status of a laundryman in the Middle Kingdom is the lowest possible. His pay there averages about 10'cents a day. In the United States this condition of affairs is reversed; laundry work 13 a fine ar fraud the pay seldom falls below sls a week. The origin of the Chinese laundry in America is quite odd. When gold was discovered in California the news spread all over the world,and in due time reached China. As told by gossips and as published in the newspapers and magazines of that land, there was far across the ocean a country in'which the mountains were solid gold, and in which the poorest laborer could easily earn 20 taels (S2B) a day. This news to a populace whose daily toil brought in from 8 to 30 cents a day 'was a revelation. All who could beg or borrow the necessary cash set sail for the Golden Gate. Upon this came the contracts from the railroad builders of the West. They could not obtain American laborers for less than $5 a day; but they could bring over unlimited numbers of Chinese for almost any price. Mongolians have been imported from Hong Hong and Canton time and again for sl2 a month and board. This movement culminated in the building of the Union and Central Pacific. These employed, over 10,000 Chinamen. For several years mining and railroad construction gave employment to the multitudes of Mongols who flocked to these shores. They all did well and their letters to their homes, and more especially their continual remittances served to increase the desire to emigrate to the, United States. Then came a sudden change. Mines and mining became unpopular and to a certain extent unprofitable. Bailroad construction dropped off 75 per cent. As a result tens of thousands of Chinese were thrown out of employment. In a strange land, confronted by a language and customs whose gepius was diametrically opposed to their' own, they were without warning thrown on their own i esources. Many adapted themselves to their new surroundings and became cooks, nurses; domestics, street-sweepers and expressmen. The majority, however, became laundrymen. Wah Lung, of San Francisco, noticed in 1852 that all Americans who had money wore 1 white starched linen and paid enormous prices to washerwomen for washing and ironing. He opened up a laundry in consequence, and by charging lower rates than his competitors succeeded in building up a large and remunerative business. His friends and- relatives soon followed his example and enjoyed a similar success. New York World.

Shetland Superstitions. All fishing communities are superstitious, but the Shetlander has an additional title to be so in his Norse descent Old myths still linger in out-of-the-way localities, influencing the motions and molding the conduct of many a fisher family. Lays, such as the “Eddie Rune Song at Odin,” and the Arthur Knight song, or “Nightmare Incantation,” of which Dr. John Lqyden, in his “Complaint of Scotland,” had only “heard two lines that were made the frequent themes of speculation by mythoi ogists,” are yet handed down by oral tradition from mother to son. As for the domestic superstitioa- of the Shetlanders, they are precisely the same type as those found in other isolated and uneducated communities. A belief in trows, elves, mermen, and mermaidens is universal. Wraiths and portent receive implicit credence. Many of the survivors of the great storm of the 20th of July, 1881, assert that they owed their safety to the warnings they had received. A woman washing her husband’s clothes in a burn sees his trousers fill with water, and infers from that an intimation of his approaching death. The last executions for witchcraft in Shetland were in the beginning of the last centurv, when Barbara Tullach and her daughter, Ellen King, were burned alive on the Gallows-hill of Scalloway. A famous “vizard” of former days, who shared the same fate, was known by the name of Luggie, and dwelt on a little hill called the Knob of Kebiater, a few miles north of Lerwick. “Like his cduntrymen in modern days,” says Dr. Cowie, “he drew his harvast from the sea; but unlike them the calling exposed him to none of the dangers of the deep.” For, Whenever he want-, ed a fish he dropped his line through a hole in the knowe and drew up his fish ready cooked at- some subterranean fire. “This,” says Brand, the worthy missionary of 1700, “was certainly done by the aid of evil spirits, with whom he was in contact and covenant, but the economy of the kingdorh of darkness.is very wonderful, and little known to us.” Spey wives and dealers in charms and incantations still ply a roaring trade. There are drunken old hags in Lerwick itself who earn their livelihood by imposing on the credulity of ignorant sailors and silly servant girls.— Exchange,

Healthfulness of Hammocks. Beds are occupied night after night, year after year, by divers persons in sickness and in health, in summer’s heat and winter’s cold, and as to when bedding is remade and purified each one can judge by his pwn experience. Compare this with the use of the South American hammock, which only, requires a stout blanket inside, and in winter a woolen sleeping dress as well of suitable make periodically washable. The sanitary difference becomes at once startling to those who have never considered the subject before. Ada, aged 4, who was doing something, was told to desist by her mother. Mother: “Ada, am Ito speak to you again?” Ada: “Yeo, ’ma, yon may if you like.” " - <