In addition to the candy, the peddler has also a very delicate sweet that is less substantial, but none the less popular because a larger amount can be bought for the same money. The material out of which it is made is moist sugar, as white as the manufacturers can produce it. This is put into a large pan and boiled over a slow fire. After a certain time it is turned by the heat into a very consistent and a very sticky substance. At the proper moment this is taken out of the pan and transferred to a board, where it is moulded with deft and knowing fingers into a length of two or three yards.
Then begins a most peculiar process that is to change the whole character of the material before us. It is first of all stretched with a cunning hand just as far as it will go without actually snapping. It is then doubled back on itself and pulled again to the breaking-point, and so on time after time until the work is done.
During this peculiar manipulation, the sweet has undergone a remarkable change. From a dark, almost black colour, it has been turned into a golden hue, and from being dense and heavy it is light and flaky, so that when it is cut into lengths for sale, each one looks like a stalactite that might have been taken out of Fingal’s Cave. A bite from one of these crumbles at once in the mouth and a crackling sound is heard and a beautiful aroma is perceived, and before one has hardly had time to realize it, the sweet has dissolved.
Another thing that the eager eyes of the little fellows catch amongst the dainties is molasses candy, made in the orthodox home fashion, but cut into little squares and sold for just one cash apiece, which is about the thousandth part of two shillings. This is cheap and therefore popular, for it will stand a good deal of sucking before it disappears, which is a consideration with the generality of the buyers, for their finances are not usually in a very flourishing condition.
Besides the above there is real sugar candy, not in sticks, but in lumps as they have come from the sugar refinery. There are also a great variety of sugar-coated combinations that all have their patrons, and as the little knots of purchasers come in from different directions at the well-known call of the peddler, one marks how varied are the tastes of the lads by the way in which they select the articles they like from those laid out so temptingly on the boards that contain his stock.
Another very popular peripatetic merchant is the man who is popularly known as the seller of “sweets and sours.” Like the man already described, the people that patronize him the most are the children, though a goodly proportion of his sales is made to persons of all ages. His goods consist entirely of fruits prepared in such tempting and fascinating ways that the general public is ready to put their hands in their pockets at the sound of the little bell that announces the presence of this popular caterer to the public taste.
He has quite an assortment of all the most popular fruits that are known in Chinese life. He has the arbutus, which at a rough glance appears very much like a strawberry, though it is really essentially different, for it has a large stone, and even when it is fully ripe it has a decidedly tart taste about it. He has these in several distinct forms, so as to meet the wishes of those who vary in their views as to how the fruit should be eaten. Some have been prepared with the slightest dash of sugar, so that the sour and sweet are so nicely adjusted that both can be distinctly perceived as it is slowly eaten by the purchaser. Some, again, have been so deluged with sugar, that the naturally acid flavour has almost vanished, and there remains but a remnant of the old nature left to modify the ultra-sweetness of the sugar. Others, again, have been dried in the sun until nearly all the juice has vanished. They have then been steeped in brine, and the combination of salt and tart that is the result has a fascination for some that one can hardly understand.
All these are strung on thin slips of bamboo in fives, and the buyer holding these in his fingers can slip them off one by one into his mouth without soiling his fingers. Three or four cash is the usual price for this delicacy.
In addition to these, there are plums from the country districts, and luscious-looking peaches and large fat mangoes all drenched in sugar, which has not only preserved them from decaying, but has also added a new flavour to each of them, which is specially attractive to those that favour any particular kind. Again, amongst the collection there is one fruit that always finds a ready market—the dwarf apples that are brought by the steamers and the huge merchant junks from Tientsin and Newchang in the far North of China.
