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Show - I SKATING IN CHINA. Its Utility In Carrying on the Internal Trade of the Country. Skating is a bnsiness with the Chinaman China-man rather than a sport, for he con trives to turn frozen canals ito convenient conven-ient highways for hia merchandise, as they do in Holland and Denmark. Passengers Pas-sengers are carried in sledge chairs, propelled pro-pelled by an active Celestial on skates, and there is no more enjoyable way of making a tour round the 17 miles of wall which encircles the ancient city of Peking than in a sledge of this description. descrip-tion. The canals afford facilities for locomotion loco-motion which are not to be found in tha ! dirty streets, crowded as they are with overworked humanity. It is not likely that the Celestials will ever astonish the world with a rival to our Smarts or frees, for they do not aim at great speed of progression, but they are nevertheless fairly qualified adepts in their way, and there have been some efforts made to introduce ice yachts out there, which would indeed be k grand thing not only for sport, but for the transport of goods at a time when all traffic is practically as a standstill, owing to the impassable condition of the wretched causeways whioh do duty in China for highroads. There are over 70 miles of the Pei-Ho annually covered with ice several feet thick, bank to tank, extending from Tung-Chao, tht port of Peking, to the mouth of the river riv-er at Taku, in the gulf of Chili. What a noble race course this wtmld form for our fen skaters! It is not commonly known that thfl capital of China is icebound for five months out of the 12, or that the stolid looking Chinese could ever bo graceful ekaters, yet both these facts are well established. es-tablished. The Chinese use a very inferior infe-rior Etylo of skate, of their own manufacture manu-facture a mere chunk of wood arranged io tie on the shoo and shod with a rath-sr rath-sr broad strip of iron. There is no attempt at-tempt at eleganco of design or at any- j thing approaching a spring fastening. A pair of "Acmes, " whon shown by tho writer to some native students in th Chineso.capital, produced unbounded astonishment as-tonishment and admiration by their neatness and strength. On the other hand, the very cheapness and simplicity of the common nativo made article tend to mako skating general. Pittsburg Dispatch. 1 |