SIAMESE ROPE-DANCER.
"When you go into a wood, do not forget your wood-knife.
"An elephant though he has four legs may slip; and a doctor is not always right.
"Go up by land, you meet a tiger; go down by water, you meet a crocodile.
"If a dog bite you, do not bite him again."
Between the luxury and splendor of the king's court and the poverty of the common people there is of course the greatest and most painful contrast. The palaces of the king are filled with whatever the wealth and power of their owner can procure. The hovels of the common peasants are bare and comfortless, the furniture consisting only of a few coarse vessels of earthenware or wicker-work, and a mat or two spread upon the floor. In houses of a slightly better class will be found carpenter's tools, a movable oven, various cooking utensils, both in copper and clay, spoons of mother-of-pearl, plates and dishes in metal and earthenware, and a large porcelain jar, and another of copper for fresh water. There is also a tea-set, and all the appliances for betel chewing and tobacco smoking, some stock of provisions and condiments for food.
Probably the most reliable witnesses to the true character of the Siamese are those Protestant missionaries whose lives are passed in intimate association with the people and devoted to doing them good. From a recent book written by one of these, Miss M. L. Cort,[A] we shall obtain a fair idea of life in Siam and of certain customs dear to the common people.
"Women enjoy greater liberty than in almost any other Oriental land. You meet them everywhere; and in the bazaars and markets nearly all the buying and selling is done by them. As servants and slaves, too, they are seen performing all sorts of labor in the open streets. Still, they are downtrodden and considered infinitely inferior to men. It is a significant fact that although boys have been educated for past centuries in the Buddhist monasteries, there are not and have never been, so far as I can learn, any native schools for girls. Quite a number, however, learn to read in their own families, but such knowledge is looked upon as a superfluous accomplishment, and they are not encouraged in it, neither is any one ashamed to acknowledge her ignorance of books.
"The Siamese are a pleasant, good-natured people, but lazy and indolent to the utmost degree, and vain, shallow, and self-conceited. Their greatest vices are lying, gambling, immorality, and intemperance, although the latter is strictly forbidden by one of the commandments in their Buddhist decalogue."
The Siamese are deplorably susceptible to the evil effects of alcohol and opium. Physically they are a small and rather weakly race, and the effect of strong drink upon them is shown in the rapid deterioration of their bodily health; while their temperament, which is by nature light, timid, and gay, becomes morose and sullen under the same influence. The terrible inroads which were at one time made on the health and well-being of the people from the too-abundant use of arrack, a native spirit distilled from rice, brought these truths vividly before the minds of the authorities, and led to the adoption of stringent regulations affecting the sale of that spirit, to the loss and much to the regret of the Chinese dealers who had acquired a monopoly of the trade. A still more determined crusade was undertaken against opium-smoking, which was even held to be a blacker and more pernicious habit than swilling arrack. Strict laws prohibiting the practice were passed and enforced; and any ill-starred Siamese now found pipe in hand has the choice given him of either denationalizing himself by adopting the Chinese pig-tail, and paying an annual tax as an alien, or of suffering death. In this traffic also the purveyors are Chinese, who, while protesting, perhaps too much, against the importation of the drug into their own country, show no compunction whatever in distributing it broadcast among the people of other nations.