1841.
Illustrations of Men and Things in. China;
105
itinerating workmen who mend and clamp broken glass and china-. ware, have one set into the point of their drill. But the corundum js. far too expensive for a common workman, and he employs another method of trimming his pane of glass. He marks an ink-line where he wishes it to be divided, and then files a notch on the edge to com- mence: after this, he slowly follows up the line with a lighted joss- stick; the glass cracks pretty evenly after the fire, which is detained upon a spot until it splits; the edge of the pane is rather uneven, but the putty, says he, will hide all those defects.
་
+
A Chinaman.'-What a number of things there are to which we prefix the adjective China as a convenient mode of designating them! Porcelain and China are synonymous with many persons; a set of chi- na, or chinaware, China silks, China sweetmeats, China root, China orange, China rose, are all sufficiently marked merely by the adjec tive; for ages have the productions of this country excited the com- mercial enterprise of other lands, so that the terms China ship, China merchant, and China cargo, in common life, designate a peculiat branch of commerce. But among all the odd things this country produces, a Chinaman himself is the oddest. Ever since the day when Milton sang,
• Of Sericana, where Chineses drive,
With sails and wind their cany wagons light,'
J
down to these matter-of-fact times of tea and Patna, a Chinese has remained an image of himself. He is, in truth, a curious speci- men. Judge him by our standard, and he is to it a very antipodes, but weigh him in his own scales, he is of great gravity; try him by his own measure he is faultless. It is hard to say which of the two standards is the best for arriving at a fair decision. Next to the son of heaven, a true Chinese thinks himself to be the greatest man in the world; and China, beyond all comparison, to be the most civilized, the most learned, the most fruitful, the most ancient-in short, the best country under the starry canopy. It is useless te toll him to the contrary, for he will no more believe you than you do him; If your country is so good, why do you come here after tea and rhubarb?" is a puzzler ;"If your people are so good why do you bring opium here to destroy us?" is unanswerable in his mind to prove his own goodness and our wickedness;—" We can do with- out you, but you cannot live without us," says he, to clinch them both;
and when a Chinese is thus intrenched in his own wisdom, he is beyond persuasion.
1,
If we examine some of the minuter shades of his character we
VOL. X. NO. II.
14