By Vera Kelsey.
The shades of our ancestors would certainly be falling fast if they ever dreamed that the addled caravans of baskets, boxes, rolls, cans... which through many a Chinese village pass were the descendants of the trim trunks and hand bags of our heritage.
But what properly treed ancestor, contemporary of Pullman, could ever recognize the open wan lan tied up bunchily with fish net, the pink wash basin, the oiled paper umbrellas, the tinned milk as property of an Anglo-saxon brother? Or in the bulging kai, vividly rolled in green in pu, oilcloth, the child cradled in an Ostermoor?
Nor do we consider ourselves or our luggage, descendants. On the contrary while they dress for the symphony of the spheres, we count our pieces lilting by on the bamboos of the coolies and register a warm degree of satisfaction with ourselves. The coolie who carries the load of a an-and-a-half, receives the pay of a man-and-a-half, gives us a man-and-a-half to a man-and-a-half smile which we feel no compunction accepting.
Sometimes of course, we take a smart bag and travel first class by train or boat. We reach our destination with a kodak picture of the captain or a water buffalo near the station. We've made what might be called a trip in one dimension.
But the further we descend among the classes and the masses, the more dimensions we acquire, until in third or fourth class, we out-science science and occupy all the dimensions known or unknown about us. Self-preservation is the first law of Nature.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.