Clothes and Class Prejudice:
Minority Opinion Sets Pace By Our TACHIENLU ComnEsroNDENT
June 4.
Szechuan, with its sixty million people, is a very peculiar lump of human nature. Socially, the province believes it is developing along' national orthodox lines. It is only. natural that when a man awakes he should express himself and this is what West China is doing at the present time, and has been doing for the past few years. Self-expression is by no.means a mystic term but may be seen in the out of man's coat or the angle of his hat, Socially, the province now has an expression which it had not some years ago. The term "shoe-huei" meaning "society" is now on every one's lips and the public schools have a teacher who lectures of social questions. 'This has undoubtedly been one outcome of the Revolution: society as a factor in Chinese life has come into being. Everything a man' does now, be he merchant, official, scholar, or artisan, is relat ed to society. In this great province man's position in society is of some importance. Formerly there was such thing, The Mandarin ruled the city; the Taotai ruled the district; the "Viceroy ruled the province, These men were everything and dominated everything and the term shoe-huei" was unknown—at least we understand it now, There were secret societies and benevolent societies and mutual societies, but no such thing as Society.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.