| Show JOHN CHINAMAN SOME THINGS IN WHICH THE HEATHEN IS PECULIAR veldts and customs custom described by a mao man who ila hiim deen been there irow the strict are ara kept clenn cleana A pointer in sanitation there Is probably no country or people about whom so many popular misrepresentations exist as the chinese this singular state of 0 things is duo due to two chief causes in the first place most newspaper writers on oil the subject write first impressions from very superficial data and without understanding tile tha subjects upon poll chich aich they write then again the chinese themselves in this country are not disposed to lose sleep whether they are understood or not then many books have been written by people with political or other kinds ot of axes to grind and have given only such facts fact sand and interpretation pre tation 0 of facts as tended to accomplish accompli 11 their purposes there are many incidents and customs in a the flowery kingdom which have been ignored in both books and newspaper articles STI CLEANING PROBLEM I 1 am asked how the chinese keep their cities clean it may be that aldermen might get a hint as aa to the best solution of 0 the street cleaning problem from the practices of the bathen hal hen the conditions are so different there arid and hero here as to render comparison misleading in the I 1 first place the principal source of 0 dirt in american cities is absent front from chinese cities I 1 refer to horses here so numerous and such prolific sources of dirt there are no horses seen on chinese streets drawing carts or other vehicles what few horses are arc seen call are ridden by officials or soldiers the government owns all horses freight is transported by men either upon their shoulders shoulders or on wheelbarrows the streets are riot not over six sl x to ten tell feet wide and the sidewalk yi pi dewalk is lit in the middle ue of these narrow lanes tile the stores stares and shops tire are open to the t a street line on either cither side and each shopkeeper cleans ti the to street to the center in front pt his shop this is all al the pr provision for street sweeping xo Nogar garbi bagels igo is thrown into the streets and I 1 lash ish barrels are unknown hence the chief sources of dirt in our cities are unknown there are no underground sowers sewers and no need for them residences are arc provided with other means of disposing of filth than either dumping or draining into rivers lvery every residence however humble is provided with earthen jirs jars or large stoneware vaults into which all othe otherwise unusable refuse refu seis is cast and the contents of these family jars unlike our If family 1111 ly jirs jars is convertible into cash xo no N po people fertilize in agriculture to such su c it an all extent its as the tha chinese this creates n ready market for what we cas cast t in sewers and pollute our waterways A cammon street sign posted over large eart lien vessels sunk ron in t lie do not warn the c public to commit xo no nuisance but respectfully fully invite the public to pause hure bire bi re these peculiar arid and odoriferous institutions are arc owned by men who make it their life business to deal in the commodity which the aforesaid public deposits sinthe in the receptacles this is soldat sold at so much ft a measure to farmers who mrry it to their homes often many miles away where it is put into earthen tanks of ge vats to ferment reader hold your nose until it is required to fertilize growing cabbages and other truck this Is one cne of the characteristic institutions of china arid and the good results from it are ara apparent in tile yields ot of food plants every eov cow herder border carries a basket into which lie or she gathers up the fragments meats which are arc used as the city sewerage for fertilizing purposes A UNIQUE SPECTACLE ACIr As one saunters through a chinese city his bis eyes are greeted with what at first forms to say tile the least a unique spectacle it is the public patronage of 0 the dealer in sei sewerage Is tho ho t air pure well hardly have you ever observed the uniformly small nose of tho the orientals Orient als in this country I 1 if you have and will accept my solution of that feature it is that the smelling or organ a it has boon been exhausted by ingali inhaling D the street odors of china one tiling thing can ca n be said in favor of thus disposing of t the lie sewerage of cities viz it does docs not pollute the water wa terA v aich is more vital to health than the air then the airhar air has greater self cleansing powers than water arid and taken on the whole it is the better plan to protect the water than the air from impurities puri ties it is albo true that no poison is is so malignant as sewer poison and that I 1 is unknown in china llave have you ever figured the commercial value of the contents of our sewers which is daily and hourly like Tenny sons brook flowing on oil forever to pollute our own niagara river if so you have been surprised that some method of utilizing utilizing ai this source of wealth has not been beell do de sell it is not my purpose here to dish up figures or statistics on the value 0 of an all article daily going to habte arid and for which tile the soil of 0 tile surrounding cou country liti is r suffering af under ilia existing regulations reg it 1 actions the chinese farmer is able to harvest three crops from every foot of ground every year in no other way could such a population tic oc fed winter wheat rotates with either rice or cotton during winter when the wheat is getting its start radishes or turnips are grown on the same sani csoll soil then around the margin of the ground seeded to wheat beans or peas are grown crown As soon as the wheat is harvest edit rice is to succeed it the ground is is irrigated and planted with rice if cotton is to rotate with the wheat the seeds are planted before the wheat matures by digging between l the drills of wheat and when the ilia utter latter is harvested the cotton plants are well under growth then tho ilia space between the cotton plants plan s is dug clug up and the succeeding crop is solo sole tenant when these summer crops crop are gathered wheatie wheat Is again sown nota not n foot 0 soil la Is left productive nonproductive non rion this state of affairs could not last but tor for the rich fertilizing methods arid and sewerage Is the principal and almost exclusive source of forti aizers the sic li lieal cathen hen has learned len lessons sons in economy and cleanliness froni from which the ibo am american people might learn a 1 l thin thing or two pen ilava lin in buffalo nen s |
