The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 4, 1897, Page 29

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, APRIL 4, 1897. 27 How the Chinese Children of San Francisco Play “Horse” and Other Garmes UCH little funny seli-important | E’ beings as they are, trotting along | A the steep ana narrow pavements of | Chinatown under the escort of their proud" fathers, their plump and smiling mothers, | anxious-eyed sluve girls or their older | brothers or sisters. | They are alway in colors | brighter and more varied even than those | which dye the plumage of tne most bril- | liant of the parrot famiiy. Their tin, white-stockinged feet shuffle unsteadil along in the white, wooden-soled shoes veculiar to their race, and their night- black locks are crowned with curiously | sashioned embroidered caps, irom which | depend as many festoons of riboons, beads | and silken braids as the family purse can | supply or the family taste demands. Taken altogether the Chinese child out | for a holiday is a sight that, although fa- | miliar to San Francisean eyes, never | ceases to be interesting. - Tihe eves of the | “Fong Wai’ gaze at the smail specimen of Orientalism with curiosity alone, but the Chinese, one and all, from the high-rank 1 mandarin to the poorest coolie, look upon | the baby Mongolian with an aifectionate | kindliness which is s genuine as it is | universal. The Chinese marvied woman who has | no children considers herself if not ac- tually disgraced at Jeast a most unfor- tunate and unhappy person, and she un- | ceasingly spends both time and money in various rites, the object or which is to propitiate the stern deities whose disfavor she thinks she has innocently and un- wittingly incurred. The Chinese wife to whom the fates are kind, u she is a “mission girl,” passes ime usually devoted to the prepara- 2 always na worldly future 2 advent she looks ward 3 appiness. No dainty little garments, marvels of softest flannels and finest cambrics, ex- | lannel and silk. This style of costume, | her little one on her back nearly all her quisite embroideries and rich laces, are fashioned by loving fingers for Ol ese babies. Their attire while they are very young is simplicity itself, sinca it consists oniy of being wrapped loosely but com- fortably in *baby blankets” of warm though not particularly pretty, has its compensations, for there are no wearying seasons of dressing and undressing to be | zone through. Tuoere are no tight bands | 1o compress the delicate little bodies, no | cruel pins 0 jab them, and no heavy | skirts to fetter their legs and drag upon their small spines. A ciadle finds no place in a true Chinese household, but the loving mother fashions a kind of hammock in which she carries waking hours. Should the child be fret- ful, as even imperturbable Chinese babies occasionally are, she iwists one of her arms backward and upward, and, gently patting the small bundle of discontent, sings to it some of the many ‘‘Daby jiagles” which have hushed their an- SOME CHINESE CHILDREN AS THEY ARE SEEN cestors to sleap for centuries past, but she never rocks and rarely *‘cuddies” it. When the baby grows too strong and | active to be kept within the bounds of blankets it is promoted to the dignity of under-garments and a slip or sack of some | warm material. At the age of 1 year the national cos- tume of blouse and trousers is assumed. Generally three or four blouses of Vi colors and different lengths are worn, the shortest on the outside, and the trousers | are always left to flap loosely about the feet of the girls, while those of the boys’ are tied closely about their ankles. For the first six years of its existence & se child of any station is as thor- happy as mortal can be, for itis nd indulged iu all possible ways ry one with whom it comes in con- “Baby is king” all over the civilized world, but nowhere is his sway more ab- solute than it is among the Chinese. The most vicious and blood-thirsty high- binder will lead a straying little one back to its home with solicitous gentleness, and there is no storekeeper or peddler so poor among them that he cannot, now and then, put a little gift into some baby hand, even though the chubby owner of the hand has no shadow of a claim upon him. As a rule the children are, in their own way, extremely pretty. The yellow, parchment-like skin of later years is in early youth exquisitely clear and smooth, of a pale, cream color, just | s+ aded with olive, and of a wonderfully fine texture. Their eyes are bright and intelligent, their hair, though coarse, zlossy and weli-cared for, and even the babies who can scarce stand stecdily upon their feet have a quaint air of dignitied reserve in the presence of strangers which adds greatly to their infantile charm. After the sixth birthday a great and sud- den change comes into a child’s life. Babyhood is past, and, according to the traditions of their people, the time for i iy work and study and diccipline, strict, con- stant and unrelenting, has srrived. The first and last law of a Chinese fam- ily 1s obedience—blind, unquestioning and instant—and the child who 1s careless or rebellious finds every misdemeanor | visited with punishment as severe as it is inevitable, and the patriarchal govern- ment taus instituted continues through- out the lifetime of the parents. Disrespect shown toward older people is considered almost as an unpardonable sin, | and a properly brought up child never dares to treat a grown person of his own race with other than the greatest defer- | ence and politeness Oldly enouzh, too, neither father nor mother object to their children beir chestised by any neighbor or acquaint- ance who considers them deserving of ch domestic reproof. There is no “sparing the rod” among the Chinese, nor is family discipline a thing of whim and words. It is severe, unvarying and continuons, and, as the children soon learn this and govern themselves accord- ingly, the homelife is, in the main, quiet and pleasant. Although girls are considered ‘in all ways inferior to boys, thev have many privileges in our San Francisco Chinatown which they would not have were they born in the Flowery Kingdom. While some of the poorest families vir- tually sell their small daushters by *hir- ing them onut” for a term of years for a iump sum, paid in advance, many Chi- nese send theirs to the pubiic or mission | schools and give them an equal chance with their brothers as far as early educa- tion is concerned. As pupils the children are said by their teachers to be equally bright, quick and tractable. They particularly ex i drawing from models and sketche: anything that requires an accurate and observing eye and imitative ability, but they are slow to originate or to apply sb- stract rules to actual practice. In the schools taught by the “Fong Wai” they are fully as restless and mis- | | chievous as white children; but in the | presence of their Chinese instructors they are models of deportment and assiduous application tostudy. Moreaver, they pay their Chinese teachers the compliment of weari gowns, called '‘school gowns,” which are supposed to be very ‘‘honorable’” and to | place upon the shoulders of their wearers a burden of personal dignity which is well-nigh crus Achild who descends to anything ap- proac: in levity or light amusement while arrayed in this garment becomes at once an object of scorn and reproach to his sociates. But when, after a most sedate walk home, the heavy responsi- bility of the gown is laid aside, the serious and rous student becomes instantly | metamorphosed into a shouting, jumping, hilarious young creature,. whose aim seems to be to get the greatest amount of | fun possible out of every spare hour that passes over his shaven and queued head. ‘The sports of the Chinese chiidren are quite as various and interesting as those of their white brothers and sisters. They play with dolls, tops, marbles, balls and kites in the same ways, and some of the games which have been handed down to them from centuries. long past are identi- cal with those ylayed time out of mind by our own young folks. “Tag” they play with great zest, and as they are very wary and fleet of foot the child who occupies the josition of “lock moe,”’ or *it”’ 2s American children say, finds it a rather difficult and extremely exciting task to capture any one to officiate in bis stead. “Blind man’s buft” is also played as | American children play it, with the excep- | tion that it is considerca absolutely neces- sary to use for the “blinder” a silk hand- kerchief of the gayest colors, Many of the games played by boys and girls togetier are something like those 2 to their schools certain long blue | played in our kindergartens. The chil- dren, whose voices though thin are gener- IN ally sweet and clear, sing or chant!stanzas descriptive of certain animals, persons or | events, accompanying the music with a | series of movements, gestures or facial | contortions, intended to portray the same clearly to the spectators. One of the oddest of these is called the | “serpent game,” in which a long line of children weave in and out and under each | dulating motion, until they are coiled up in truly snakelike fashion,and then un- | coil themselves in the same manner. | The play of “tack chai,” or “kick stick,”” seems to be an Oriental form of *‘hop scoteh,” in which, however, no disfigura- tion of the pavement by chalk lines is necessary. | A light piece of wood 1s selected for the | “chai,” and one party of boys kicks it | about with surprising swiftness and ac- | curacy of aim toward a gosl, which they are anxious to attain in as short a time as possible, while an opposition party ! dragon’s ierds, hollow and gaudy with | other’s arms with a peculiar, gliding, un- | makes guerrilla-like forays upon them and kicks the stick in every direction but the one desired with equal force and dex- terity. “Battledore and shuttle-cock” isa favor- ite game with both young and old, but these lithe and active people use their feet instead of the parchm-nt-covered bat- tledores with which American children bit the winged pieca of velvet-covered cork. g The game 1s calle ack yin” in Chinese, and the ‘“‘yin” is either a fish bladder inflated. and ornamented with festhers or a smali snakeskin similarly treated. The many different directions in which a Chinese boy kicks during an animated game of tack yin is little short of marvelous, and as bis interest and- ex- citement increase his legs, which at first seem to be merely rather unusually limber, appear to become possessed of joints which turn in every imaginable way without occasioning the slightest in- couvenience to their owner. He can “box the compass” with his twinkling feet as CHINATOWN. easily as an old sea-captain can with his tongue, and he can even kick vigorously and effectively with one leg twisted around the other, when he feels like “'showing off”" before admiring spectators. “Teasing the dragon” is much en- joyed, and many of the wealthier chil- aren are the proud possessors of hideous gilding and bruliant paint, from which hangs a voluminous curtain of red cloth. Into one of these heads the child thrusts his own, ana, the red cloth completely enveloping his fizure, becomes an object more than startling to the nerves of any one who happens upon him unexpectedly. Two or three children arrayed like this are pursued and playfully tormented by their companions, but if they succeed in catching any of their small persecutors | the positions are atonce rever:sed and the teacer becomes the teased. *Playing horse’ is a much more elabor- ate performance with these rittle people than it is with American chiidren. No two-legged steed, ramping and champing in'a twine harness, does for them; their horses are mostly of the saddle variety, and they have four legs, and lively ones, every one of them. Iv takes thrze boys—two large and one small—to *play borse” satisfactorily in Chinatown. One of the former is the head, shoulders ana forelegs of the ani- mal- Another, bending at right angles, places the top of his head iu the “small’’ of his comrades back and, as they inter- lace their arms to keep steady, becomes at once the boay and hind legs of the horse. The actuslresemblance to a horse thus produced is es comical as it is surprising, and when the third boy climbs into the saddle and proceeds to train his mestle- some charger the sight is one to bring tears of laughter to the eyes of the veriest misanthrope. This horse can kick and rear and plunge and buck like the worst- tempered Mexican mustang that ever un- willingly exchanged freedom for sla but he can also amble as smoothly as & lady’s palfrey, and the ‘“baby children” are often treated to long and enjoyable ridesin this way by their kindly older com panion: The Chinese children are fond of pets, white mice and rats being their special favorites, whiie poodle doas and cats are much liked. They are rarely cruel to any animal and are not quarrelsome among themselves. The older children are early taught to care for the younger ones, and whenever two of the same family are seen together the older child invariably bas the hand of the younger clasped closely in its own. Even daring study hours in school they beg to be allowed this privilege of “hold~ ing hands,” which seems to give a feeling of security and protection to the one and a sense of affectionate responsibilitv to the other. EGAL McVaHON. Over £1,100,000 is spent yearly by Lon- don on fanerals. Myths Scientifically fl?_iewed‘ HE latest stare in that branch of £1Z he science of mythology which M/ concerns itself with the scientific origin of myths is dne to Professor B. K on, who, in a recent address before ssociation, traced som- and most beaut ific pheno toe story of Tantalus solar phenomena was long ago i out by ¥ orge Cox. Tania- myth. Whe a drought came, which tte s the water apvroach, and to eat the 1 asp—points to the drying up of the streams and the withering of herbage by the fierce heat of the sun. Hercules is another impersona- on of the su abors are poetic sions of the s ts with the clouds and the rain. As he sinks on the funerai yile, fiery mists e m, and purple vapors rush ai v like streams of blood rushing from the hero’s body, while | violet-colored evening clouds cheer him in his dying azony. Many incidents in | the most beautiiul of all the Greek ) legends—those of Theseus and Perseus— { may also be traced to a meteorolog origin. To the poetic mind of the Greek, there was a hero and a drama clond and sunburst. A myth whose origin may be eamly trace! to a scientific source is that of the chim According to Homer the chi- uera was a monster, witi the tail of a| dragon, the body of a gost, the head— some suld she had two or three heads—of a lion. She breathed fire and destroyed vast numbers of people till she herself was killed by Belierophon. She ravaged the mountains of Lysia end ate the fiocks. Her fevorite home was a mountain now known as the Yanar Dagh. Recent trav- elers In that region report that under the mountain there isa reservoir of natural gas, from which stieams have been flowiag and burning from time immemorisi; they also mention that a species of mountain lion is also abundant in that v.cinity. every Here we have the genesis of the mon- ster, the lion, which was famaliar to the in- habitants, and to which 1t was only neces- sary in fancy to append the body of a goatand the tail of adragon to call the chimera into existence; and the fire, which really bubbled out of the cracks in the earth, and which a heated imagination could readily have placed in the jaw of the same beast. Petroleum and natural gus sbound in the region between the Mediter- | ranean, the Black and Caspian sess; they will account for the fire-breathing bulls which Jason bad to overcome before he could possess himseit of the golden flecce at Colchis. If the early Britons bad been gilted with as rich a fancy as the Greeks they would bave filled the piains of ¥ork- tmyg with fire-breathing creatures to ex- {lain the inextinguishable jets of cosl 843 which the traveler observes from the railroad train as he passes. Some of the ancient myths siill await explanation. One of these is the oracle of Delphi. Taroughout antiquity the priest- ess of Delphi was supposed to possess the | was said to obtain these mystical power’ by seating herself on a tripod over a deep chasm in the earth whence proceeded an intoxicating vapor. Modern exploration | bas demonstrated that §o vapor now from any vart of the D:lphian and there has been no convuision | nature in that par the world, at t since the time of Strabo, nor is any | nown to chemists which, if inhaled | bed, could sharpen the facultie: e episode complicates the stor When Europa was carried away by Jupi- ter ner family was plunged into grief, and | her brother Cadmus was charged with the } duty of finding her and bringing her| ho He found her at Delphi, to which | place she had voyaged from Crete, and | there she was kecping company with a | ¢ No nation of this | myth has been proposed; it seems to rest | on pure fancy, and the oracle appears to | be simply a bald irand. | Crete, the present battlefield between | Greek and Moslem, is fuil of myths which have defied investigation. Some of them are supposed 10 b2 anterior tu the Greek | civilization and to have been imported | from Asia Minor or the Phenician | colonies. The Minotaur, who lived in a | labyrinth and every year consumed seven Athenian maidens and seven beautiful | youths, may rerhaps have been a proto- | type of the robber barons of the middle | ages, who built castles on inaccessible | crags and sallied forth to make captives | of tha daughters of the peasantry in the | valleys; but his origin is quite irrecon- cilable with scientific law. Pasiphae is the creation of a morbid and bestial sentiment such as might exist amonga | race of shepherds. Professor Emerson a:cribes to the myth of Niobe a prehistoric origin. He sup- poses that same pre historic scuiptor made | u heroic statue of a woman out cof the rock in Mount Sipylus, in Lydia, and left it sianding where it was made. Above | the statue, on a higher point in the | mountain, & spriuz of chalybeate water | overflowed in the wet season, and irom it | jastream trickled down and feil on the | womaw's Lead. Tnus, to a distant or | careless observer she would appear to be | | always weeping, and the rocks at ber feei | { might fizure as her slaughtered children. | | The professor explains the Noachian | | flood &5 the reult o1 the combined action | of a cyclone and an earthquake with a | tidal wave. Such waves are known to be i common in the sian Gulf. Butit was| bardly necessary to invoke the aid of | either earthquake or cyclone. Alt myth- | ologies and 2imost all early histories con- tain accounts of a deiuge in which human life and human habitations were destroved | by water. In prehistoric tim+s no provi- sion existed for the overflow of water which accumulated in & vailey, and river outiets oiten proved insufficient to carry off the surplus. At the present day fresh- ets drown large areas of ievel land in the Mis:issippt and Missouri valleys, and all the features of the Nouachian deluge reproduced on a small scale. Similar phenomena used to be Witnessed in the valley of the Rhone in France, That the water ever rose in Armenia so high that a vessel landed on ihe top of Mount Ararat, 17,000 feet ahove sea leyel and within a short distance from the head- of gifts of divination and prophecy; she waters of the Euphrates and Tigns, i+ requires a powerful effort of the fancy tof “THE SNAKE TURNED ITS HEAD AND HISSED.” believe; but it is quite possible thatalong , mitted to posterity with poetic exaggera- | had and plainly discerned in the phe- continuance of heavy rains may have submerged the plateau on which the mountain rests, which is only 3000 feet above the sea. In Oriental countries alter- nations of freshets and droughts are of common occurrence. It is quite easy to conceive a deluge so tremendous that its record may have lingered in the traditions of the place, and may have been trans- | tion. The story of the ark is common the world over, and Noah himself figures under another name in many lliteratures. On the day after tne desiruction of Pompeii the sun was never seen, and the sky was so clouded by ashes that even so intelligent a philosopber as Pliny doubted whether the end of the world had not come, were enraged at the public neglect of their altars. It was much easier for the common plebeian to understand this than to realize that the accumuiated tufa of twenty centuries bhad fsuddenly been ejected from the volcano and that it occupied a large ’nnmenon a proof tuat the pagan deities ‘The augurs were quite sure that it | | possibili In the Grasp r; HUGE Brazilian boa constrictor Li which has ruled Black Point Key ALY for a long time has just been cap- | tured by Professor Walter Ralston of the | Smithsonian Institution at Washington | who went there for the purpose. The snake | measured fiiteen feet 1n length and weighed fully seventy-five pounds. It is supposed to have killed several persons who lance1 on Black Point Key and have never since been heard of. Professor Ralston teils a harrowing | siory of his adventure with {he snake and it seems almost a miracle that he lived to relate it. He waiched the python with- out food or sleep for twenty-four hours before the opporturity came which en- abled him to try to ‘master it with some v of success. The professor tells in graphic language exactly what his fortunes and misfortunes were. “I have been working twenty-six years in the interest of scieuce,” said he, “and in all thattime 1 bad never experienced an adventure so perilous as the one that befell me on Black Pomt Key. I had hesrd of u great snake being there before | I came here, and made up my mind that it must be a specimen worth looking after. The story as it came to me was that a ship containing specimens from South America for a circus in the United btates had foundered oft this coast, and it was supposed that this snake, which was really king of Black Point Key, had been a part of the cargo of the ill-fated vessel. “Black Point Key lies just off the coast and at the edee of the Everglades. Itisa low ridge topped by a growth of pines. | ‘While an island now it originally was a neck of land. The people who lived on | the adjacent keys were in a state of terror regerding the snake, and in constant fear that it would leave the key on which it had been for so long and pay them a visit, and possibly eat them before ti:ey could do anything about it. The iength of the snake, they deciared, was phenomenal, and it is an actual sact that x number of men, who said they had seen i1, were willing to make affi.iavit that it was fully thirty-1 ve feet long and must weigh at | least 100 pounds. “I knew that no snake from South America could be of that s'ze, and so fancied there must be a good deal of ex- aggeration. I made up my mind I would at least take a look at the monsterif I could not capture it, and made two trips to Black Point Key for the purpose. “f heard of the'appearance of the snake again soon after my second trip, and so decided to make a third attempt to capture it. I went to that portion of | Black Point Key nearest the mainland. IfI could find whe snake there I knew I wou d have a better fighting chauce to at- tack it. Fortune seemed to be with me this time, for I had barely landea when I found traces of the snake. I trailed it for half a mile and at last came within sight of it. it wasa bigons. Irealiz:d thatit would be imposstble to get the snakealive. *‘1 thougit the situation overand con- ciuded that the only thing for me to do was to watch and wait for my chance to captare it. I knew I was fifteen miles from the nearest person and that I might ery for help as loud as I liked without the slightest probability of any response. It seemed as if the snake knew I was watch- ing, for it kept as sharp an outlook as any snage I ever saw. Iwaited until darkness of a Python came. It was impossible for me to do anything at night. Still I was atraid to £0 away, lest the snake should disappear, and 1t might be weeks before I could find it again. “I got into my canvas bag and remained thers through tie night. When day- Iight came I resumed my watch, but the snake was as wary ssever. The hours wore away until it was nearly 2 o’clack. I had | been watching the snake twenty-four hours and in all that time had not slept a wink or eaten or drank anything. Presently Isaw the snake move. A short distance away was a rabbit and the snake went after him and seized him and commenced | to swallow its victim. “I waited a few moments until the rabbit had been fairly drawn into the snake's throat, and then I went after the boa. 1 seized it by the neck and tried to shove it, head first, into the canvas bag. I had underestimated the powers of my adversary. I had supposed the sunake would be in such a state, owing to the meal it was making, that there would bs little trouble in handling it; but betore I knew it I felt the snake folding around my limbs. Inamarvelously short space of time the reptile was about me as far as the abdomen. I clung to its throat des- perately, realizing that if I once lost my bold it would be like signing my death- warrant and that I would be squeezed to a jelly. “It is impossible for me to describe such a frightful position. The snake turned its head toward me and hissed in my face, darting out its forked tovgue as if it would pierce me with it. I expected to be slowly equeézed to death, bt to my sur- prise the folds did not tighten, and then I realized that owing to the position of the rabbitin the snake's throat the pressure of my bands thereon was having an effect. Bes'des this the snake was not seemingly in the possession of its full powers, al- though it kept up a continuxl hissing and glaring at me with most malevolent eyes. “Finally I squeezed the reptile’s neck with all the sirengta of which I was cap ble.. To my joy, 1 felt the hold of the snake upon me relax, and the coilsslipped { down as they loosened. I pushed the head and neck to the ground. Still keeping one hand and my kuee thereon I man- aged with the other to gain possession of the knife at my belt. With this I soon ended the snake’s existence. “The snake was unlike any other that I ever saw belore, but I am satisfied it was a Brazilian python. It was of a dull brown in color, with black spots. Its head is about four inches long and three and a wide. Taken altogether, it a customer as [ ever encoun- The snake is being prepared for preser- vation and before long will be one of the ties of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. H. M. Stanley hus now entered into his fifty-seventh year. The fumous explorer, who was born near Danbigh, and whose original name was James Rowlauds, was placed, at the age of 3, in the St. Asaph Workhouse and was kept there for ten years, after which be tried teaching. At the age of 15 he sailed as cabin-boy to New Orleans, where he was adopred by a merchant named Stanley, whose name he took.