[Illustration: 'O']
Of all human races, next to the monkies, the Mongolians are the most
imitative. They are only a little lower than the monkies in this
respect, and we have seen some trained ones that could successfully
compete with the Simians on their own ground.
A Chinaman employed in the North Adams shoe factory, for instance, was
asked to imitate exactly a boot of a particular style, which was shown
to him. After a few trials, he imitated the boot so perfectly, that a
customer who came in took him to be the fellow of it, and was not
undeceived until he went to try him on. No wonder that the regular
Crispins are jealous of a foreign cordwainer who can do this.
In the art of dress-making for ladies the Chinese display wonderful
skill. Their taste and inventiveness in this branch are unrivalled even
by the best French _modistes_. The _panier_ with which it pleases the
ladies of the period to protuberate their persons was of Chinese origin.
It was revealed in an opium dream to a celebrated male mantua-maker of
Pekin, who sold the idea to a Yankee-Notions man travelling in China for
a Paris house. The inventor was so chagrined at hearing afterwards of
the immense fortune realized from it by the man of the West, that he
committed suicide by hanging himself on a willow-pattern plate.
Although the Chinaman does not naturally possess an ear for music,
according to our standard, yet his imitative power enables him to adapt
himself very readily to the production of melody. One of the Coolies
employed in the great HERVEY wash-house at South Belleville, N.J., was
observed to watch with great interest an itinerant performer on the
accordion. Shortly afterwards, catching up a sucking-pig by the tail and
snout, he manipulated it precisely as the player did the accordion,
producing--accordion to the testimony of several credible
witnesses,--strains quite as good as, if not worse than, those drawn out
by that musician.
As soon as the 200,000 Chinamen ordered by Mynheer KOOPMAN-SCHOOP arrive
in this country, a good business can be driven by Yankee toothpick
makers in supplying them with chopsticks. This word was originally
"stop-chick," being so called from the use occasionally made of it by
Chinamen for knocking down young poultry. It became corrupted, like
everything that is good and pure, by contact with extreme civilization.
Anybody who can make a shoe-peg or wooden toothpick can make a
chopstick. It is to be hoped that the chopstick may ultimately be
adopted here instead of the knife and fork. It would preclude the
possibility of people carrying their food into their mouths with the
knife--an outrage so commonly to be remarked at hotel tables.
A very intelligent Chinaman told the writer, not long since, that there
is absolutely nothing to be seen or heard of in this country that the
Chinese were not familiar with several thousand years ago. Among them he
enumerated target-companies, sewing-machines, patent baby-jumpers,
nitro-glycerine, shoo-fly chewing-tobacco, wooden hams, stuffed
ballot-boxes, and a hundred other things which we are prone to brag of
as being purely Yankee and original. We are too conceited about
ourselves, by a great deal, and it is good for us that even Chinese
shoemakers should come here once in a while, to "take us out of our
boots."
* * * * *
A Midnight Reflection.
The man who commits suicide may be said to show his contempt for the
hollowness of the world by putting his foot in it.
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[Illustration: _Gentleman, (reading.)_ "THE MILITARY AUTHORITIES OF
PARIS HAVE CUT DOWN AND UTTERLY DESTROYED THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE."
_Old Lady._ "POOR BOYS!--AND TO THINK WHAT THEIR DEAR MOTHERS MUST
SUFFER!"]
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