EARRINGS OF COCHIN CHINA GIRLS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2573, 6 April 1877, Page 3

EARRINGS OF COCHIN CHINA GIRLS.

But human nature is .weak, especially I feminine human nature, in;the adornment question, and vanity- runs tQ.tbe ears of the-Cochin girls. . Their earrings^ are wonderful to behold. T hey can't indeed be rightly called earrings. They are more like the bungs of a hogshead. At the tenderest.years th^litlle children have great gashes cut in the lobes of their ears and tortoise-shell plugs inserted tostnetch them, and as they grow older these plue;s are enlarged, till, atmaturity, they appear with things like snuff, boxes, the size of a moderate pair of fists, almost always of tortoise shell, sometimes of ivory, plain for every-day.wear, but for grand occa- ; sion| elaborately" inlaid with gold" and silver, and,on very> grand occasions the ear-plugs are of solid gold, • weighing a" pound or ■ more apiece, \and- carved in the most distracting way. I think that I have remarked before that the Cochin jewellers are greatly skilled in their trade,-especially repousse work, 1 wbioh.irnbw^gettTng; b6 fashionable here, and they expend their very best energies on the earrings for .the Cochin belles. It i& wonderful how they work, with tiny -forges and tiny blow-pipes blown by.tiny boys',' enormous horn goggles and little hammers arid damme'r, or soft composition, to form a basis for their punching opera-

tion, and the'purest gold'and silver, and little bellows worked by little toes. Fingers, toes, nose, and ej'es snap and glint as they rapidly ply their task. Four annas, or twelve ccnl.s, which is the regular coolie or day's wapps for these I'oreditnry skilled mechanics (from this cotilie, or day's hire, comes the term " coolies." for daylaborers so hired) seems a trifling sum indeed-for the fniry-likc results of their artistic labor.—Correspondence Boston Commercial Bulletin,