It must be owned that the Chinese are industrious: indeed, if they were not, they would be starved. A poor man often has to work all day up to the knees in water in the rice-field, and yet gets nothing for supper but a little rice and a few potatoes.
The ladies who can live without working are very idle, and in the winter rise very late in the morning.
Men, too, play, as children do here; flying kites is a favorite game. Dancing, however, is quite unknown.
The Chinese are very selfish and unfeeling. Beggars may be seen in the middle of the town dying, and no one caring for them, but people gambling close by.
The Chinese have an idea that after a man is dead the house must be cleansed from ghosts; so to save themselves this trouble, poor people often cast their dying relations out of their hovels into the street to die!
But in general sons treat their parents with great respect. They often keep their father's coffin in the house for three months, and a son has been known to sleep by it for three years. Relations are usually kind to each other, because they meet together in the "Hall of Ancestors" to worship the same persons. To save money they often live together, and a hundred eat at the same table.
The Chinese used to be temperate, preferring tea to wine. There are tea-taverns in the towns. How much better than our beer-shops! But lately they have begun to smoke opium. This is the juice of the white poppy, made up into dark balls. The Chinese are not allowed to have it; but the English, sad to say, sell it to them secretly. There are many opium taverns in China, where men may be seen lying on cushions snuffing up the hot opium, and puffing it out of their mouths. Those who smoke opium have sunken cheeks and trembling hands, and soon become old, foolish, and sick. Why, then, do they take opium? Many of them say they wish to leave it off, but cannot.
MISSIONARIES.—Are there any in China? Yes, many; and more are going there. But how many are wanted for so many people! Missionaries travel about China to distribute Bibles and tracts. One of them hired a rough kind of chair with two bearers. In this he went to villages among the mountains, where a white man had never been seen. The children screaming with terror ran to their mothers. The men came round him to look at his clothes and his white skin. They were much surprised at the whiteness of his hands, and they put their yellow ones close to his to see the difference. These mountaineers were kind, and brought tea and cakes to refresh the stranger.
An English lady went to China to teach little girls; for no one teaches them. She has several little creatures in her school that she saved from perishing: because the Chinese are so cruel as to leave many girl-babies to die in the streets; they say that girls are not worth the trouble of bringing up.