Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/78

40 Fatshan factories. This is partly caused by the cheapness of Chinese labour and the suitableness of the articles manufactured to local popular requirements. Chinese scissors, for example, are quite different from those in use with us, and if we were to attempt to cut with them, we should be apt to tear the cloth. In the hands of a native tailor they are made to work wonders, and indeed use has taught the latter to prefer them to our own. The iron used in this district is mainly imported from abroad, although it is said that ore abounds in the Ying-ping district of the province, of a quality so good as to yield 70 per cent of the metal.

But the "Feng-shui" superstitious dread of natives, fostered by the Mandarins, to opening mines is gradually giving way before the pressure of foreign intercourse and a practical popular awakening to a knowledge of the wealth stored up in the land. Contiguous to the iron deposits are also coal-beds of unknown extent and value. So long, however, as "Feng-shui" and Government opposition hold their sway, mines are certain never to be opened up. Some progress has been made in this direction; the coal mines of Kaiping, eighty miles north-east of Tientsin, are worked with European machinery, and connected by a railroad with the Peh-tang river, twenty-one miles distant. As we pass through the city we notice numerous edifices substantially built of brick, the residences of native merchants, temples with a sculptured granite façade, and a large customs station; but the houses in the suburbs which border the creek are raised above the water, on piles, and their temporary, miserable appearance is in striking contrast to the abodes and evidences of wealth which we encounter in the heart of the town. The Creek