PRICE OF A CHINESE WIFE.

Evening Star, Issue 3736, 12 February 1875, Page 3

PRICE OF A CHINESE WIFE.

To the Editor. Siß,—ln your yesterday’s issue you give, under the heading “Price of a Wife,” an extract from the ‘ New York Times,’ playfully showing how dear a Chinese wife may he to her husband. So little is known of China by people outside of it, and as many of your readers may possibly not see that It is intended as a “ goak,” I crave space to explain that the witty correspondent at San Francisco was drawing largely on his imagination when he described the way a Chinaman gets a wife. As a Chinaman, I can say that no such sordid and inhuman barteiing for a wife exists in China, and that the roan who would order a wife as he does a case of “kum quots” would be laughed at for his trouble. It is untrue to say that we obtain our wives in that fashion, although it is possible, though hardly probable, that someone may have tried such a nlan. The writer says that our countrymen resemble Europeans in many things, and I agree with him. I have often had read to me advertisements appearing in Dunedin papers inviting—shall I say “tenders”—from young ladies to relieve the distresses of disconsolate bachelors. It would provoke a smile in China (equal to a European laugh) were I to say that the people here wooed by advertisement and pictured the qualities of a good wife by the inch, instead of by the volume, as in China. It might be pronounced amusing by some people, but a*s it would be sure to be misunderstood by many, wise folk would say that it was cruel to be funny at the cost of injustice. I enclose my card, in compliance with your rule, but beg to subscribe myself A Citizen of the World. Dunedin, February 12.