‘No. 12.—Chung-so (small ducks in oil).
‘No. 13.—Tong-chou (mushrooms, worth three dollars per pound).
‘No. 14.—Sum-yoi (birds’ nests, worth 60 dollars per pound).
‘And some ten or twelve more courses, consisting of stewed acorns, chestnuts, sausages, dried ducks, stuffed oysters, shrimps, periwinkles, and ending with tea—each course being served up with small china bowls and plates, in the handiest and neatest manner; and we have dined in many a crack restaurant, where it would be a decided improvement to copy from our Chinese friends. The most difficult feat for us was the handling of the chop sticks, which mode of carrying to the mouth is a practical illustration of the old proverb, ‘many a slip ’twixt the cup and lip.’ We came away, after a three hours’ sitting, fully convinced that a China dinner is a very costly and elaborate affair, worthy the attention of epicures. From this time, henceforth, we are in the field for China, against any insinuations on the question of diet à la rat, which we pronounce a tale of untruth. We beg leave to return thanks to our host, Keychong, for his elegant entertainment, which one conversant with the Chinese bill of fare informs us, must have cost over 100 dollars. Vive la China!’
Mr. Cooke, in his graphic letters from China, speaks of the fatness and fertility of the rats of our colony of Hong Kong. He adds: ‘When Minutius, the dictator, was swearing Flaminius in as his Master of the Horse, we are told by Plutarch that a rat chanced to squeak, and the superstitious people compelled both officers to resign their posts. Office would be held with great uncertainty in Hong Kong if a similar superstition prevailed. Sir John Bowring has just been swearing in General Ashburnham as member of the Colonial Council, and if the rats were silent, they showed unusual modesty. They have forced themselves, however, into a state paper. Two hundred rats are destroyed every night in the gaol. Each morning the Chinese prisoners see, with tearful eyes and watering mouths, a pile of these delicacies cast out in waste. It is as if Christian prisoners were to see scores of white sucking pigs tossed forth to the dogs by Mahommedan gaolers. At last they could refrain no longer. Daring the punishment of tail-cutting, which follows any infraction of prison discipline, they first attempted to abstract the delicacies. Foiled in this, they took the more manly course. They indited a petition in good Chinese, proving from Confucius that it is sinful to cast away the food of man, and praying that the meat might be handed over to them to cook and eat. This is a fact, and if General Thompson doubts it, I recommend him to move for a copy of the correspondence.’
A new article of traffic is about to be introduced into the China market from India, namely, salted rats! The genius with whom the idea originated, it would appear, is sanguine; so much so, that he considers himself ‘on the fair road to fortune.’ The speculation deserves success, if for nothing else than its originality. I have not, as yet however, observed the price that rules in Whampoa and Hong Kong nor the commodity quoted in any of the merchants’ circulars, though it will, doubtless, soon find its place in them as a regular article of import.
A correspondent of the Calcutta Citizen, writing from Kurrachee, the chief town of the before mentioned rat infested province of Scinde, declares that he is determined to export 120,000 salted rats to China. The Chinese eat rats, and he thinks they may sell. He says:—‘I have to pay one pice a dozen, and the gutting, salting, pressing, and packing in casks, raises the price to six pice a dozen (about three farthings), and if I succeed in obtaining anything like the price that rules in Whampoa and Canton for corn-grown rats, my fortune is made, or rather, I will be on the fair road to it, and will open a fine field of enterprise to Scinde.’
Rats may enter into consumption in other quarters, and among other people, than those named, when we find such an advertisement as the following in a recent daily paper at Sydney:—
‘Rats! Rats! Rats!—To-night at 8 o’clock, rattling sport; 200 rats to be entered at G. W. Parker’s Family Hotel.’
Query.—What ultimately becomes of these rats, and who are the persons who locate and take their meals at this ‘Family Hotel?’ Probably they are of the rough lot whose stomachs are remarkably strong.