Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. III.pdf/39



HOW many out of the total industrial population of China pursue their occupations in the public streets, and may truly be described as "journeymen tradesmen," is a point on which no estimate can be formed. But in every large city these sort of people are to be counted by the thousand, and though in our own towns we should class them as tinkers or costermongers, this nomenclature would by no means comprehend the accomplished handicraftsmen whom we fall in with at every street corner in China, men far too poor ever to aspire to the dignity of a settled shop, seeking their employment in the public highways, and by wandering from door to door. Our venerable friend Ahong, on the extreme left of No. 25, has spent his days in the streets of Kiu-kiang. He knows what hardship is, and can tell strange stories of the rebels, who for a time disturbed the even flow of the trade there. Ahong is a maker of soup, and so was his father before him. Born of a "bouillon"-producing family, he early became a graduate in the mysteries of the small kitchen which he carries about on his rounds, meeting his regular customers at the stated hours, in certain parts of the town. He is pictured here as he receives, with an air of native sang-froid, the polite acknowledgments of a purchaser who has sat down to discuss a bowlful of his savoury broth. It would be well for our poor in England if we could import a regiment of such cooks as these men, who can produce wholesome and nutritious food out of the scantiest materials, and at a very moderate cost Old Ahong will regale a patron with a bowl of his best for a halfpenny.

The gentleman in the centre of the picture is a public scribe, and is here seen writing a letter at the dictation of a lady. But his epistolary services, if those were all he had to depend upon, would not pay him; for the people, most of them, can conduct their correspondence for themselves. He therefore combines the avocations of a fortune-teller and physician with that of a penman, laying claim as an oculist to special skill, in professing himself able to cure seventy-one disorders of the human eye. His successes are said to be confined solely to this organ. On his table is opened a long list of the diseases with which he professes to deal. This catalogue he consults from time to time to refresh his memory as to the scope of his professional powers. As a soothsayer, he foretels the effects of the letters which his customers desire him to write, whether their contents pertain to law, or love, or commerce. He will also select the lucky day for a wedding, and raise, if required, the curtain of the future, so as to afford his dupe a sunny glimpse into the regions of the unknown. He is a crafty old rogue, and trades on human credulity with astounding success. His table, chair, and apparatus are of the most portable kind; and these he folds up at night and carries away with him under his arm. The figure behind him is one of the begging pests of Kiu-kiang

Next to this group we observe the itinerant barber, a man who performs a variety of professional operations on the organs of sense. He is not a surgeon, as was the case of old in Europe, but he must possess a delicate acquaintance with each of the "gateways of knowledge" situated in the human head. To Shave the sconce and leave the usual disc of hair at the back supporting the tail is the rudest of his achievements. Besides this, he has to trim the eyebrows, cheeks, and chin, to remove refractory hairs from the nostrils and the ears, and to tickle the tympanum so as to open a free highway for the enchanting noises of the Flowery Land. The rolling eyes of his customers are cleansed and dressed after a process that it makes one's blood run cold to contemplate.

The little cabinet upon which this gentleman seats his clients contains four drawers. The upper one holds his earnings, the next receives his tiny instruments, and in the third perhaps a dozen razors are to be found, whereof each in its day has reaped acres of Celestial pates. The lowest drawer contains his towels, combs, and brushes, while on his left he has a water-basin, with a small furnace of charcoal beneath. Tradition tells us that the staff he carries as a sign of his order was presented by an ancient emperor to a distinguished member of the profession, as a reward for the skill with which, when a mosquito had settled upon the Imperial countenance, he cut the insect with a swoop of his razor in twain, leaving its legs and half the body, unconscious of the disaster, still planted on the bridge of the potentate's nose.

The two remaining figures on the right represent a wood-turner and his customer. The latter is examining the make and finish of a wooden ladle.

I might have gone on to fill volumes with such groups as these, for the representatives of almost every trade are to be found in the thoroughfares of China. In my concluding volume I shall hope to continue this phase of native life, giving some important additions from the metropolis, Peking.