SLEEP OF CENTURIES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1374, 27 February 1912, Page 9

SLEEP OF CENTURIES.

AWAKE AT LAST. Just as new Aspects ore becoming move and more noticeablc in governing circles, so are they in the lifo oi the people of China (writes the special correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph"). Queues are already conspicuous by their absence, and European hats and caps have leaped into trcmemloua vogue. So great was the rush that shopkeepers in every line nt business saw money in running a lino 01 European headgear, mostly made in Japan. I have seen ham shops, bootshops, grocers, fur dealers, tinsmiths, and furniture-makers displaying h"ts. Three months ago hardly one could be seen on the heads of the Chinese, ?\ow 95 per cent, of the residents here wear them. Seventy-Jive per cent, of the shops stock them. The demand has also spread the length and breadth of the land. Jhe first purchase generally is a cop, then the fancy runs to all sorts of shapes, from the straw to the bowler. The Japanese manufacturers reaped a rich harvest over this adoption of the new headgear, while the Chinese hat and cap-makers aro bemoaning their fate and wondering why on earth they ever thought the revolution would be a good tiling for tho country. The silk manufacturers, seeing what is "happening to the hatmakers, are trying to stop any change of dress. # But the number of' European-dressed Chinese is becoming more noticeable. There is one. thing certain, and that is that tho cutting of the queue is going to have a great moral effect on the social life of this country. The males look more like men, and they feel like it.

WOMEN SOLDIERS. The women, too, are changing; their styles of coiffure, as well as striking out for more freedom. Instead of Hie styles that h.ivo obtained for years, they have gone back a century or so, and taken to the fashion of doing liair in plaits, just above the forehead. Look at them, too, as warriors. Troops of them dress themselves in ordinary soldiers' uniforms, and liang swords, or revolvers upon themselves. .Some secure carbines, and seriously go forth to war. A couple of hundred" must now be in the field 011 the line to Tientsin. So far they have not had an engagement, but they are desperately in earnest. Could any other country in the world permit this sort of thing but China? Yet China is a land where the women till very recently were almost kept under lock'and key. Certainly their feet were bound until they wore cripples. The stranger could not, however, toll a troop of Amazons from tlie ordinary soldiers. They look alike in features, and l>oar themselves equally as well. All are slovenly, of course, and this fact permits females to pass undetected amongst the males. "Whether tho Amazons will be able to participate in actions pending along the Tientsin-Pukoiv line I am unable to say, but certainly there will bo some iighti.ig.