Page:Chinese Characteristics.djvu/30

22 could not make up their minds to forego the luxury of a feast, and no harm appeared to come of their indulgence!

Another example of Chinese economy in relation to the preparation of food is found in the nice adjustment of the material of the cooking-kettles to the exigencies of the requisite fuel. The latter is scarce and dear, and consists generally of nothing but the leaves, stalks, and roots of the crops, making a rapid blaze which quickly disappears. To meet the deeds of the case the bottoms of the boilers are made as thin as possible, and require very careful handling. The whole business of collecting this indispensable fuel is an additional example of economy in an extreme form. Every smallest child, who can do nothing else, can at least gather fuel. The vast army of fuel-gatherers, which in the autumn and winter overspread all the land, leave not a weed behind the hungry teeth of their bamboo rakes. Boys are sent into the trees to beat off with clubs the autumnal leaves, as if they were chestnuts, and even straws are scarcely allowed leisure to show which way the wind blows, before some enterprising collector has "seized" them.

Every Chinese housewife knows how to make the most of her materials. Her dress is not in its pattern or its construction wasteful like those of her sisters in Occidental countries, but all is planned to save time, strength, and material. The tiniest scrap of foreign stuff is always welcome to a Chinese woman, who will make it reappear in forms of utility if not of beauty, of which a whole parliament of authoresses of "Domestic Economies" would never have dreamed. What cannot be employed in one place is sure to be just the thing for another, and a mere trifle of bias stuff is sufficient for the binding of a shoe. The benevolent person in London or New York who gives away the clothing for which he has no further use entertains a wild hope that it may not be the means of making the recipients paupers, and so do more harm than