The "movies" are now beginning to find their way about in the interior. The Chinese adaptation of the popular cinema is naturally curious.
Who but a Chinese would show the pictures on a bright moonlight night in the open in a disused and squalid tanner's yard, while the melon seed man sells his wares by the light of a lantern in the middle of the crowd!
This is what happened here the other night. A pile of old boxes, an old bellows and a rickety table support the apparatus. Correct elevation is attained by the addition of broken tiles or an old shoe. Pressure gri the cylinder is produced by the addition of bricks from a ruined wall conveniently adjacent The most crooked of clothes prop poles support the sheet. The audience are quite content to sit, stand, squat or Wander round, notwithstanding they have all paid five coppers for the show. Russian, Japanese, French and_ British films are shown, so it is an international show. But the Japanese fan-makers captivate the crowd, and as fans are made by dozens with lightning speed, the onlookers admit that the Land of the Rising Sun is indeed a formidable trade competitor.
Although the rain came late, there will be a fair autumn crop, and the cotton is in flower.
This city boasts that its trade has no need of the impetus of annual fairs. Other places around, in order to whip up business, have their big gatherings of traders two, three or more times a year. Still the early part of each sixth moon is the recognized season for buyers to come from all parts and our business people hold their sale days.
This year much business has been done and furs, embroideries, curios, ete., have started for Peking in quantities denoting prosperity. There are plenty of evidences that Jocal trade is certainly not as described by the continual shopman's reply to "How's business?" "Sitting idle all day."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.