It is not uncommon to see their dentists wandering through the streets with rows of old fangs suspended from their necks like necklaces, trophies of their skill; and every dead wall in the city has its vermilion posters, advertising some great quack medicine, so that it is quite evident that the science of medicine has reached that pitch of refinement where a host of quacks can ply their arts with as much success as among the western barbarians.
Heaven save us, though, from a Chinese doctor! Mechanical surgery is his forte; for a stomach ache he will pinch your neck; for a broken rib he will nearly crack the bones of your arm, and if you faint under this he will hang you up by your heels to restore the circulation.
According to the diagrams published in the books on medicine, the knowledge of anatomy possessed by the faculty in China is very slight, and entirely erroneous; and in all their cures it is very probable that nature, unassisted except by rest and fasting for a season, does the work. They certainly are able to give her very little help.
It is noticeable, however, as a proof of the high esteem in which the people hold the science, that the shops of the chemists and apothecaries are kept by a superior class of people, more intelligent in appearance than their neighbors, and holding a higher rank.
Of the lower trades there are innumerable shops, the variety of which is almost bewildering. Every art and manufacture has its minute subdivisions, and one meets, at every step, signs of the superior civilization of the people in their admirable division of labor. Silk looms are working in the open streets, shoemakers and tailors are each plying their art in their narrow shops. In one they manufacture little paper offerings for the gods, in another the gods themselves, in the next their worshippers are supplied with joss-sticks or gayly colored candles of tallow, mounted on slim sticks, that they may be stuck in the sand before the divinity. Here you will find a printer hard at work taking impressions on their delicate paper; next a bookbinder, who sews the leaves with withes of paper, while in the next shop you can procure the almanac for the year, months before it is required. In August, 1863, they were selling copies of the almanac for 1864. Probably this work has the largest circulation of any in the world, hanging, as it does, in every house. The only exception may be the Bible, which, it is to be hoped, will yet be as widely circulated in China as it is among the other nations of the world.
Numbers of the people are engaged in the delicate carving we so much admire in the ivory toys scattered throughout Europe and America, and a vast number of people in preparing the hanging screens with curious devices, quaint pictures, and sentences from Confucius, which are found in almost every house of the better class. They have a great fondness for the proverbs and wise sayings which, are thus kept always before their children, like the very good rules and aphorisms we see on the walls of our Sunday schools.
A good example of the minute subdivision of the Chinese trades is seen in the shops devoted exclusively to the sale of camel's-hair pencils, and others for that of the little squares of red paper, covered with hieroglyphics, which we receive on a pack of fire-crackers, and which constitute its 'chop.'
Jewellers' shops contain very little interesting to a foreigner—most of the rings and brooches are trashy articles of jade-stone, a greenish stone which resembles agate or cornelian in opaqueness. The armlets are of silver, and of the same substance are the large thin circles worn by the women of Foh-Kien in the ear and resting on the shoulder. Pins for the fantastic pyramid they erect with their rich black hair are rather pretty, but are generally ornamented with false pearls. For pearls the Chinese have a passion, but it requires a judge of the article to purchase any from them, nine tenths of those in the shops being fictitious. Seed pearls are also used by them as medicines. In the back streets it is not uncommon to find places where they make them, and others where artists are engaged in cutting and polishing on the lathe the few precious stones they possess. Rock crystal is one of their favorites, and from it they cut beautiful vases and goblets that are sometimes as clear as glass. In this, however, they are surpassed by the Japanese, whoso crystal globes cannot be distinguished from the most perfect glass. They also cut vases and carve odd figures in an arsenical stone, of reddish color, with a grain like granite, which is little known in other countries.
In Shanghai the shops for the sale of china and porcelain-ware do not present as fine an assortment as those of Canton, where vases costing fabulous sums are to be seen, but they are rich with the peculiar pottery of Soo-Chow. Just at present the display of this ware is not as fine as usual, owing to the occupation of that city by the Tae-Pings, but enough remains on hand to show its beauty and general usefulness. Chinese porcelain ware is as well known in every civilized country of the world as in China itself, and has ceased to be a curiosity unless when intelligently viewed in its historical character, for all these quaint scenes scattered over the magnificent vases we receive illustrate some event in Chinese history, or some custom which obtains among the people.
When evening approaches and the shops are lit up with lanterns, the numerous and brilliant lantern warehouses attract the attention: some of the goods they display (and at nightfall they light every lantern in the shop) are extremely beautiful and costly; all kinds are to be obtained, from the fine hall-lamp of painted glass to the sixpenny lantern to be carried in the hand. At night these gay lights give much animation to the busy streets. Having gone across Shanghai from the south gate to the French Concession one dark night, after the city gates were closed, a good opportunity of seeing the interior of a Chinese city after nightfall (which few foreigners care to avail themselves of) presented itself. The people were slowly closing their shops for the night. Here and there a shopkeeper was counting his cash, and calculating at his counter with the help of the abacus; many of them were sitting at the doors of their houses, smoking in the evening air; the barbers were still at work preparing their customers for the night. Like Washington Irving, these may have considered a good clean shave the best soporific. Here and there a citizen of the better class was to be seen picking his way by the light of a lantern, held by a boy, and twice we met sedan chairs containing women, preceded by a lantern bearer. The passage of two sedans in these narrow streets is a difficult and unpleasant process, the bearers generally managing to grind your shins against a wall. At night it is still more difficult to avoid contact, and the coolies are incessantly shouting, in a sing-song voice, to prepare the way. As it was, in the narrower streets we passed between files of dusky figures and black, inquisitive eyes, ranged on either side to barely allow passage. The cook-shops were deserted, and the attendants busy in putting out the fires; only the places where lanterns or candles were sold seemed to be doing an active trade, although it had scarcely struck nine. At ten o'clock no doubt all were asleep, for hosts of beggars and poor wretches were snoring by the roadsides. The most picturesque groups passed in this evening stroll were those on the bridges, where, by the light of tallow candles, men and boys were gambling and fighting crickets. Although probably there was not another European or American within the walls of the city, the passage was as safe as if made at noonday, guarded by a file of soldiers.