iscences of Old Days When Justice was Summary but Travelling Safe By De, Jon Dassocit I am very>grateful to the Editor} of the "North-China Daily News" for giving me an opportunity to Bay goodbye to my friends in China through the modiam of his paper. Ihave many friends both in Shanghai and in the interior; if I have any enemies T am unaware of their existence. I differ from some of my} friends who go home aiid do not Intend to return. Tam not going, because Tam tired of China or despondent about her future. T am mot "going while the going is good." By Society is reorganizing its work anid wants me to be in London. My furlough was due at this time any-'Way and I shall still be doing at home the kind of work I have been doing here, so shall not lose touch with the friends I am leaving. could foreign nations compete with Chinese who were paid at the rate' twopence halfpenny per day? But as the Chinese workman increased in efficiency his pay docket swelled arid this process will probably continue until his wages are not much below that of the workman in. other countries.
Life in China was certainly safer forty or fifty years ago than it now. My first station was in a iny village among the hills in Northern Anhwei, Bandits were One has seen great changes in the forty three years I have lived this country and greater changes still are impending.: China has always been interesting and promises to be more interesting in the near future than it has been in the past, so those that stay have no need to envy those that go. China has always also been disappointing. The country is so vast and has such potentialities of great advancement that it has always seemed that good times were just round the corner, Unfortunately, when the corner was turned the good times did not materialise. Something always cropped up to spoil the outlook. But nil deaperanda the black clouds will surely roll vay some time and brighter days dayn for the masses of this great country and when it is well with China it shall be well with those who come to live within her common in that district. Almost!
When I arrived in China the Wages of a tradesman were 140 cash per day. 'The wages of his mate—the untrained man—were 80 cash, That is, in present day currency 14 and 8 cents. And old men would grumble at' the extort tionate price they. had to pay workmen dor, in their young days, the wages were 6 cash and 8 cash. Now, this means that since the coming of foreigners to China there has been a steady rise in the remuneration paid to Inbour. The coat of living has risen proportion ately, but the workman undoubtedly better off to-day than was 43 years ago, When the first cotton mills were started in Shanghai the wonien workers were famine refugees from up-country, Mho squatted on the bank of the Whangpoo, South of the French concession, and stumped to their work in Yangtszepoo in the morn-Ang on their small bound fect. They had never soon a move complicated machine than a wheelbarrow fore they were engaged as mill Morkers and the Lancashire Inds swhio were brought from home to be overseers must have had many a heartbreaking experience in teach-ug. those women—there were itis, Girls were always a market able commodity and were disposed of on the trek. from the famine region to want wealthy Shanghai Those who sce the neat and Sntelligent factory girls, going or coming from the mill nowadays, ttle realize that they are the second generation of mill workers fand as different from their progenitors as a porcelain use from the clay it is made of. The true of the Chinese engineers on steamers or the work-ho build the many-storied th which Shanghai is now domed. The foreign mercantile Community has trained up a new yace of workmen, pretty much a3 Kipling's Sergeant-Major made soldiers out of mud on the banks of the Nile.
The higher wages earned by workers nowadays reacts for the Benefit of those who trained them, every night we heard the sound of guns being fired off by some famers outside the long street of the village, which was cloted by heavy! barred gates every night as soon as the sun went down. The guns Were not fired by the bandits. They were too poor to possess arms. Nor were they fired by those who were being dispelled of their goods. It was the neighbours, who hear the turmoil of some poor person wailing that he kad no money and being beaten to make him produce some, who fired off their guns to tell the bandits that they could fight if attacked, This was a typical case. A poor man trundled his barrow with few odds and ends on it one day down through the village street. He] sat down to rest near the door of christian farmer who was one of my flock. He asked leave to rest there for the night and made himself useful in so many ways that} the farmer granted his request to bbe allowed to build a shack near his threshing floor. I watched the process of building. The—man went to the hillside and out down!
'a quantity of wild bamboos about fifteen feet each in length. He took one of these and stuck the thick end in the ground, bent the small end over to form a half circle and inserted that likewise. in the! ground. He repeated this process, placing each bamboo about a foot behind the preceding one. Then he laced them lengthwise with other bamboos and zo had formed a tunnel about four feet high by four fect wide and nine feet long. Ite closed one end with upright bamboos, plastered over with mud and strate, and made a door of similar material for the front. He had then nothing to do but thatch hi enlarged kennel with straw and his house was finished. A re for a family. completely erected by tone man in the space of two hours.
T said.
"Look here, when you are building yourself a house Why not make it bigger? The material cost you nothing and you might as well have} you could stand upright for they are able to. buy the Taxuries brought from abroad on scale that was impossible to the clods who first came in contact with Western civilization. Editors jot home journals, in those far off days, used to demonstrate that the "Teacher, you are fa learned man but sou do not understand about building huts." T certainly do not; what is the objection to, making the kennel yellow peril was a reality, for how bigger?"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.