Lo the Editor of the Norta-Cuina Dau News."
Sin,—I wrote to you yesterday about the present attitude of the Chinese native Press towards foreigners. It is really of groat importance that the views of our Chinese fellow-citizens should be known to the public, Unf told, fow residents in Shanghai, outside the ranks of the missionary body, are familiar with language, and because of their inability to converse with the copie or read their books they really ttle of the thoughts and foolings Chinese as though they lived in Your hi-lingual contemporary is doing its best to remove this ignorance and is showing: itself a strong champion of conservative Chinese opinion.
In the Chinese column of the aforesaid paper there is a suggestion which is so peculiarly Chinese that it is a pity it should be taken no notice of. Speaking of the little slave girls, brought he from Szechuan, whose presence in our midst has caused such a rumpus at the Mixed Court, this writer says: "If the foreigners really pity those girls why do they not buy them from their mistress and sot them at liberty? This would be of compassion. The British fre why in the same way Sir, this suggestion is enough to make one Dolieve that the remark often made by foreigners that the Chinese are initiative and originality of Most of your of accumulating merit by setting at liberty living animals captured for the market. The Buddhist pri have! sometimes near their temples a large pond in which they feod a number of, more of less, tame fish, When the of pilgrimage comes round s man is hired to net & number of these fish. The fish are placed alive in a large tub of water which is set down by the roadside a short di ance from the temple door. As the pilgrims pass by on their way to offer their supplications at the altar of Buddha they are exhorted to " do good deeds;-to buy one of the poor doomed fish and sot it at liberty in the temple pond. Numbers of the poor people do so; the fish is sot at liberty and in the evening, when the rush of pilgrims is past, th good bonze catches a fresh supply for the morrow's trade. You have here a beautiful example of the doctrine of transmigration. The fish are transmigrated from the pond to the tub and from the tub back to the pond, and so on, and on, for over, The cash is transmigrated from the pocket of the simple country-folk to the pocket of the priest. The pilgrim "gecumulates" merit and the bonze "accumulates" cash. Your Chin contemporary proposes to try this artful dodge in Shanghai. The slave-girls are the fish, the wily Chinese are the priests, and the credulous foreigners sre the pilgrims. It is a beautiful scheme but from what I know of the foreign community here, I am afraid it won't work.
The native papers are highly indignant that the woman who brought these girls here has been insulted by being arrested asakidnapper. This lady is, it, seems, the widow of mandarin. The girls were not _kidnspped. They were purchased lawfully in the open market st so much per head. There are official documents in the lady's possession to prove this. The province of Szechuan was not devastated by the Taiping rebels as was the province of Kiangsu. The population is therefore very dense in parts of Szechuan and go keen is the struggle for existence that flesh and blood.are cheap. In Kuangtung, on the other hand, there is a keen demand for singing girls to supply the flower-boats which are sucha feature of the Canton river. The lady in question was travelling from Szechuan to Kuangtung. What more natural than that she should purchase commodities which were cheap in the one province, to sell in the other where the said commodities are dear? The commodities, in this instance, happened to be human beings but, the trade was quite legitimate, as the official papers show. Those stupid foreign policemen seeing a woman with such a troop of slave-girls were unable to distinguish between a lady and a kidnapper and insulted the lady by arresting her. Her friends are going to take action against the police unless the Municipal Council is well advised and offers an immediate and abject apon logy. That the nai should view the matter light is, Mr. Baditor, regrettable but scarcely surprising. I note, with profound regret, that the educated gentleman who writes the English leaders in your hi-lingual contemporary follows exactly in the wake of his native confreres and says no word of slavery. No one has the courage to in Chinese: "This woman acted like a kidoappor and so she was mistaken for one." little amused for a long ti y in which the Chinese coolie in America and South Africa has suddenly become Jat "own brother"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.