Page:Chinese Characteristics.djvu/156

132 The best example of such is perhaps that made from what is known as woven wire, which in recent years has come into such general use. But when one of the finest hospitals in China was furnished with these luxurious appliances, the kind-hearted physician who had planned for them was disgusted to find that, as soon as his back was turned, those patients who were strong enough to do so crawled from their elastic beds down upon the floor, where they felt at home!

Chinese houses are nearly always ill-lighted at night. The native vegetable oils are exceedingly disagreeable to the smell, and only afford sufficient illumination to make darkness visible. The great advantages of kerosene are indeed recognised, but in spite of them it is still true that throughout enormous areas the oil made from beans, cotton-seed, and peanuts continues to be used long after kerosene has been known, simply from the force of conservative inertia, backed by profound indifference to the greater comfort of being able to see clearly, as compared with being able to see scarcely at all.

Chinese furniture strikes a Westerner as being clumsy and uncomfortable. Instead of the broad benches on which our ancestors used to recline, the Chinese are generally content with very narrow ones, and it will not be surprising if some of the legs are loose, or are so placed as to tip off the unwary person who seats himself when there is no one at the other end. The Chinese are the only Asiatic nation using chairs, but according to our ideas Chinese chairs are models of discomfort. Some of them are made on a pattern which prevailed in England in the days of Queen Elizabeth or Queen Anne, tall, straight of back, and inordinately angular. The more common ones are shaped so as to accommodate persons who weigh about two hundred and fifty pounds, but the strength of the chairs is by no means proportioned to the magnitude, and they soon fall to pieces.

The greatest objections which Westerners have to Chinese