CHINAMAN IN ENGLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 260, 4 November 1901, Page 4

CHINAMAN IN ENGLAND.

Isr has an interacting article en- ■ rough Chinese Spectacles," by lkinson. Last year, It seems, ued in the principal Shanghai the North China Herald, a trans-! little book entitled "Deaultorv j 'astern Customs." TbJorigioal , mbltshed in Ghina in 1884 by' veng of Siling, bat was written ! strate named Yuan Hsiang-fu if his notes is on the important homernle: I item custom," he writes, "is to . te right hand to be the place oi '< fl to pay more respeci to at b to a man: hence when walking' i woman will precede a man,' itting down will sit on the right be left." It is perhaps utiiwcpsjserve that no principle is more established in China than the of the left-hand side. .... and wife," coatinoes Yuan," go m along the street, yet no one rosband will perform any menial e bis wife and no one jeer at him." r of an ingenious native work, its of Shanghai," draws attentioa rehensible practice on the part of and their wives, who stroll abeat garden arm in arm and shouldM sr, without any show of bashful no Chinaman ever takes a man'* 1 less a woman's. In Le Flame da >lished this year with a laudatory ■ " General Tcheng Ki-tong," tM judge is represented as walking n with a widow through the main ire in Canton. The situation is nd novel, for the majority oi udges would as soon think oi nth a balloon or a cassowary at low, if, which is very, very doubt ver thought of walking at all." subject of walking, Yuan has a te: "When three or four are ic and are passing idly along thf ey most walk abreast and not in [ling fashion. Should they meft etiquette requires them to make jer, and in so making way they to the right and not to tne left, na is a country of nice gradations, rounger brother may not presume jreast of an elder. As for yielding to a mere female, .the thought dly occur to an orthodox Confucian, lis dreams. " When taking thai meals the men must wait till » are brat seated. They cat ipy chairs next to tbem. Tin 0, women and men disperse in the sr. While the women are at table k of respect to them, no man ii 0 smoke. After dinner the me) re. the tabls and go elsewhere tt, if there be no smoking-room mus, be women have departed. Occa when the .women have finishes I By leave at once, expressly obset this is done out of compassion. I. id as a gracious courtesy em thei: 1 China thing* are managed much ribly. There the women lay the their lords, and when these have _ _ smselves, dine contentedly off the .Scraps. Both men aftd women smoke a 5 sickly powdered tobacco, inhaled a thimblei - ifal at a time. No Chinaman apologises for J*-. jfnuMnp in yonr presence; he would expect ' ■.tatber an apology from you for not smoking ? with ldm. As Yuan observes later on, " a ;■ visitor in England may please himselJ whether be smokes or not." It is considered ' Meritorious among as, we learn, to abstain pr ftom smoking, and smokers in first-class, jt* (railway carriages are fined a- pang Jfi |\ sterling}. Another discouragement to we {practice in England is its cost. Manila &■ iheroots, Yuan tells his readers, are vet/ P;',. gzpaisive, and a smoker will spend each da} 'from eighteen pence to three shillings ii totecco. "Compare with this," he says, 1, " the waste of wedth by smokers of opium g- It the Middle Kingdom, and what difference U ts there ?" The latter, he remarks, is never r, amokedby Europeans, and only occasionally * fcy Americans. A Chinaman in England ; * ns frequently considerable difficulty in obtaining it. •* Although opium is sold at all ~ druggists, yet a customer has to state for - what disease he requires it before the apothe- ~ carywili serve him. Even then he is gAen bat a very little. When natives of the , Kiddle Kingdom go to purchase it for jmoking and ask for several ounces, the 1 Arnggist will at first be startled, then, an tearing that it is only to be inhaled at a tamo, will smile and Ist them have it.**