UNSUCCESSFUL COLONISTS. AH—ME. A CHINESE FAILURE

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 226, 30 May 1872, Page 9

UNSUCCESSFUL COLONISTS. AH— ME. A CHINESE FAILURE

Tt may not be generally known, but it is, nevertheless, a geographical fact that in the vast empire of China there is a seaport village which has from time immemorial been known as Sum-Ling. In the days of the well-known Emperor Grin-Sling, towards the beginning of the first century of the Christian r era, there dwelt in the village in question a beauty of the firat water regarded from a Heathen point of view. Her name was Chip-Chow-Chelli-Chow, and she was the daughter of two parents of blue blood, who traced their pedigree back to the earliest progenitors of the human family. The widowed mother of the gentle Chip-Chow answered, when called, to the patronymic of So-So. Her aunt's maiden name was Nan-See (Nancy in English), a term of endearment among sailors, who doubtless brought it originally from SumLing. At a distance of a few miles from this spot there lived at their ancestral mud-hut the aristocratic .family of Oh-iVli, between whom aud the So-So girls a warm. attachment sub-

sisted ; a circumstance not so much to be wondered at when ie is remembered that the offspring of Oh Mi were all boys. Even at the i"emote period at which we are casting a cni'sory glance down tho long vista of ages — even then there was a marked proclivity in the boys of China to cultivate the society \ of the girls of that singular country, j The tendency is occasionally observed ' in less Pagan times ; but to proceed. A happy union took place between the neighbouring families of Oh-Mi and So-So ; and the beautiful Chip-Chow was Jed to a Heathen altar by young 80. 80, the son and heir of the Widow "So-So, who endowed him with a fish basket, and the accompanying blessing in the form since become popular among all willow pattern Orientals, viz. : by breaking a soup-plate over his. head, blowing out a candle at the same instant of time, and pi'onouncing ilie magic syllables, OH-KI-LAH ! This means, when translated into the language of the West : " Good luck go wid yez, and may yez nivver doi, and lave all these fine gardin praties behoind yez." They are partial to the potato in China. Hence the point arid relevancy of the Widow Sq-So's historic though Pagan benedictions. It is necessary to glance with unusual rapidity at Ah-Me's ancestral belongings, because although they comprised the flower of China (they were known in the vernacular as Sum-Pim? Kins) their name was legion. Suffice it that, after innumerable and devious matrimonial contracts, 'the descendants of the great Oh-Mi and So-So families were reduced, as other aristocratic persons have been, to considerable straits ; and were compelled to eke out a precarious existence by trading in esculents. In plain truth, they dealt in what John Chinaman call " vleglellebblos," and in this useful occupation gained some honour and little profit. The immediate paternal father of our hero was one Kum-Kum-Fat, a direct lineal descendant of the ancient clan So-So, previously referred to. He seems at a j very early age (they are precocious in j the Flowery Land) to have become feebly enamoured of a Celestial female, Oh-Fie by name, and to have struck the unconsidered banjo in her honour, not without success, for to this day the street-boys of his native strand are heard to chant THE LOVE SONG OF KUM-KUM-FAT. [Air (Irish) : "The Paddy Plant."] Wah-h, ah, ah. ! (Twenty minutes allowed here for tickling the Chinese banjo, and looking entirely insane.) Chicory chow-chow chinky chow Wah-h, ah, ah ! (More banjo) Lilly pi gammonee twankee foo ; Choo-cha-la, Choo cha-la ; Lilly mi chicory nanky poo ; Ghoo-eha-la. Wah-h, ah, ah 1 ! Chelli-chow chip mi welly good chow, Wah-h, ah, ah ! Chanyman mally wicl lilly pow-wow, CHoo-cha-la, Choo-cha la ; Makee John mally wicl welly good chow, Choo-cha-la. Wah-h, ah, ah ! No gammonee welly good Chany -John-Man ! Wah-h, ah, ah ! . Oh-Mi ting-a ring hanky-pan, Choo-cha la, Choo-cha-la ; Gammonee Chahymon all him can ! Choo-cha-la ! Need it be repeated here that minstrelsy such as this won the heart of Oh-Fie. It captivates people who like it, does minstrelsy such as this notwithstanding that the profane, the unappreciative, and the uncultivated describe it in terms of reproach. So much for blind prejudice. The Love-Song of Kum-Kum-Fat has actually been likened to the wild vocal flights of a gentleman tabby, possessed of sufficient musical talent to accompany hiirself on the domestic gridiron, with the aid of a nutmeg-grater. We repeat : So much for prejudice. There really is no account for taste. The reader will pardon this chalice remark, which is probably not original. In a word, the nuptials of Kum-Kum-Fal were celebrated with singular splendour, a box of wax matches having been stolen by the bridegroom for the occasion, and surreptiticntsly consumed by the bride, who mistook them for rare sweetmeats. The result did not prevent the accession to infantine life of the subject of this sketch, who, instead of a strawberry mark on tho left arm, bears the imprint of a match on his right eye lash. This is one of those things science has failed to explain. But the exigencies of space, and the unuielodious clamour of the printers of this paper, who decline to sit up any longer waiting for this biography, compel us to be brief. Ah-Me was born. He was guilty of that weakness of human nature; he committed that juvenile impropriety ; and what is the consequence? He lived to man's estate, and in the early days of the Italian Mandariu, Duff-Hi, they let him out from China without a latch key, ami he has never been able to find his way back. Observe his mangled and emaciated fjnn. He is an Unsuccessful Colonist. The Mandarin Duff- Hi can.make nothing of him. He can't speak bad enough English to be a Commissioner of Taps and Warming Pans ; he's too polite to be au attorney, either Particular or General ; and he is scarcely sufficiency asinine to take care of this colony's money and credit. Therefore you see hitn as he is . — poor, dejected, degraded— a piece oi

broken China, looking as if he had walker! out of the willow-pattern plate and yoc lost where the world's •' rubbish may be shot " on the banks of the Yarra

There scarce ever was a miserable ch;ip that couldn't find a chap more miserable to pity. It's so with colonists, that can't be called successful. The first was bad ; the second was worse ; the third was worser, and the fourth is — well, look at him, and read his story. These degrees of comparison (as they call 'em in school -books) fetch up to my memory man) melancholy thoughts, and not less melancholy jokes, like, for in-, stance, that of the Corporation idiot who complained last month that the north wind was " noxious," and who complained this month that the rotten horrors of tlie Councillors' cemetery for dead cats and departed fillb in general are not " equally noxial " with the sou'west gales that have been blowing. The lowest breath of the sea poisons this dirty rascal. He keeps a bottle of stench on hand to revive him when it Mows ; and yet if you told liirn that the following " Chinese failure " was not so "noxious" as a coarse, pig-headed, thundering fool, without nose or eyes, who took upon himself to infect the air wo breathe with street foulness, he might feel offended. Notwithstanding, I can back a clean Pagan against an unclean Christian, in or out of any rabble of parish- vestry humbugs. Let us pass on. — John Peeuybixgle, in the Melbourne " Weekly Times."