Part 21 (1/2)
During this peculiar manipulation, the sweet has undergone a remarkable change. From a dark, almost black colour, it has been turned into a golden hue, and from being dense and heavy it is light and flaky, so that when it is cut into lengths for sale, each one looks like a stalact.i.te that might have been taken out of Fingal's Cave. A bite from one of these crumbles at once in the mouth and a crackling sound is heard and a beautiful aroma is perceived, and before one has hardly had time to realize it, the sweet has dissolved.
Another thing that the eager eyes of the little fellows catch amongst the dainties is mola.s.ses candy, made in the orthodox home fas.h.i.+on, but cut into little squares and sold for just one cash apiece, which is about the thousandth part of two s.h.i.+llings. This is cheap and therefore popular, for it will stand a good deal of sucking before it disappears, which is a consideration with the generality of the buyers, for their finances are not usually in a very flouris.h.i.+ng condition.
Besides the above there is real sugar candy, not in sticks, but in lumps as they have come from the sugar refinery. There are also a great variety of sugar-coated combinations that all have their patrons, and as the little knots of purchasers come in from different directions at the well-known call of the peddler, one marks how varied are the tastes of the lads by the way in which they select the articles they like from those laid out so temptingly on the boards that contain his stock.
Another very popular peripatetic merchant is the man who is popularly known as the seller of ”sweets and sours.” Like the man already described, the people that patronize him the most are the children, though a goodly proportion of his sales is made to persons of all ages. His goods consist entirely of fruits prepared in such tempting and fascinating ways that the general public is ready to put their hands in their pockets at the sound of the little bell that announces the presence of this popular caterer to the public taste.
He has quite an a.s.sortment of all the most popular fruits that are known in Chinese life. He has the arbutus, which at a rough glance appears very much like a strawberry, though it is really essentially different, for it has a large stone, and even when it is fully ripe it has a decidedly tart taste about it. He has these in several distinct forms, so as to meet the wishes of those who vary in their views as to how the fruit should be eaten. Some have been prepared with the slightest dash of sugar, so that the sour and sweet are so nicely adjusted that both can be distinctly perceived as it is slowly eaten by the purchaser. Some, again, have been so deluged with sugar, that the naturally acid flavour has almost vanished, and there remains but a remnant of the old nature left to modify the ultra-sweetness of the sugar. Others, again, have been dried in the sun until nearly all the juice has vanished. They have then been steeped in brine, and the combination of salt and tart that is the result has a fascination for some that one can hardly understand.
All these are strung on thin slips of bamboo in fives, and the buyer holding these in his fingers can slip them off one by one into his mouth without soiling his fingers. Three or four cash is the usual price for this delicacy.
In addition to these, there are plums from the country districts, and luscious-looking peaches and large fat mangoes all drenched in sugar, which has not only preserved them from decaying, but has also added a new flavour to each of them, which is specially attractive to those that favour any particular kind. Again, amongst the collection there is one fruit that always finds a ready market--the dwarf apples that are brought by the steamers and the huge merchant junks from Tientsin and Newchang in the far North of China.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A PEDDLER.
_To face p. 303._]
When they are thoroughly ripe they are rosy cheeked, and resemble the Baldwins that come from America and are sold by the barrowmen in London and in different parts of England, only they are diminutive, for they are only about the fourth of the size of the ordinary English apple. These are crushed flat, and the whole are allowed to lie in sugar until they are entirely permeated with it. They are then strung on the bamboo sticks and are always the chief attractions that the ”sweets and sours” man has to offer to the public. As they come from a great distance, and have been rendered more perishable by the long journey they have had to travel, they are a great deal dearer than the other local productions, and so it is only those who have a larger command of money that can afford to purchase them.
This peddler has attractions that never fail to draw around him a group both of old and young, who usually enjoy their purchases on the spot. Some stand and chat with each other as they slowly crush the sweet and toothsome morsel between their teeth. Others, again, of a more meditative turn of mind, take the favourite posture of sitting on their heels, and give the whole force of their minds to the enjoying of the flavours contained in their favourite fruits. The buzz of conversation and the ready wit of the peddler, and the pa.s.sing crowds that would like to join in but have not the time, and the great sun flas.h.i.+ng down his rays upon the scene, all combine to make such gatherings as these very picturesque and very attractive to look upon.
Another well-known peddler who is very popular with the housewives is the cloth-seller. His is a form that is easily recognized, as he daily goes his round up and down the district that use and wont has made him consider to be especially his own. It is very possible, indeed, that he may have bought the right from the man that preceded him, just as with us a doctor purchases a practice and becomes the rightful successor to the man who is retiring.
He is distinguished by the fact that he carries all his stock on one of his shoulders. To carry it anywhere else would seem in the conservative eyes of the Chinese to disqualify him for his profession. As the burden he has to bear is usually over one hundred pounds in weight, it would seem an impossibility for any man unless he were a Sandow to continue day after day and for many hours in each to support such an enormous weight as this.
But the fact is that they do so, and without apparently any very great effort. The men as a rule are small and wiry, and as they move along at a steady trot, without any panting or perspiring, one is apt to imagine that the goods they are carrying are not nearly so heavy as they really are.
In order to cater for the wants of the women of the houses of his district, he has to have with him specimens of every kind of dress goods that they are likely to require, and in addition a liberal supply of the more common stuffs that are worn by the poorer cla.s.ses. These stocks he must have on hand, for he must take advantage of the immediate wants of his clients, and the impression that his eloquence makes upon them at the time, to dispose of his wares. Were he to depend upon their taking to-morrow what he has not ready for them now, he might find that their mood had changed or they were short of cash when he returned with the goods, and so his sales would be lost.
This cloth peddler is really a most advanced man, and a true pioneer in promoting liberal ideas with regard to dress. The Chinese one _beau-ideal_ with regard to that is the blue cotton cloth. Just as bread in England is the staple article of the food of the ma.s.ses, so that in China is the one eternal type of what is considered the proper kind of material with which to clothe the nation. The common people everywhere make that the basis of their dress. The farmers all dress in this distressingly dull-coloured material. The common coolies and workmen of every grade in life, following the national instinct, seldom wear anything else. It is only the well-to-do or the very rich that emerge out of this universal wors.h.i.+p of the blue cotton, and adopt silks or satins as their common wear.
The women, it is true, have a few bright colours in addition to the blue in which they appear when they are fully dressed and on holiday occasions, but for ordinary and common everyday life the blue cotton a.s.serts its mastery, and holds its own against everything else.
Now this peddler is slowly causing a revolution in the ideals of the women at least. In order to advance his business he brings the newest patterns and the most attractive goods that enterprising merchants, both native and foreign, are introducing from the West. He has no large stocks in hand that he must dispose of before he can bring in new and fas.h.i.+onable materials. All that he possesses, or nearly so, he carries with him on his shoulder, and when they are disposed of, he simply goes to the merchant and selects other goods that he has found by experience will catch the eye of the younger women and girls that he meets on his round, and induce them to buy from him.
The great aid that this man gets in his introduction of new ideas amongst the women no doubt is Christianity. This has worked a perfect revolution in family life wherever it has been received. Not only is the condition of the women ameliorated, but their position is distinctly elevated. They are not left to the tender mercies of heathen society to be treated with the indignities to which they are constantly liable. The Church is always behind them to stand out in their defence when any wrong is going to be inflicted on them. A new power has come into the land that demands rights for them that no legislation in the past and no tradition has ever dreamed of asking.
In addition to all this, there are the new methods that a faith in the gospel has developed. The custom that amounts almost to a law in China is that young women shall not be seen on the streets. They must remain indoors till they are married, and afterwards till they are getting on in years. One of the most remarkable features about the streets and roads is the few women that are seen upon them. Elderly women, with perhaps girls under ten, and slave women, are to be met with, but maidens and young married wives are a rare sight either on the public thoroughfares or on the by-ways in the country places.
The morals of China, in spite of the high ideals that have been transmitted by the sages, and that have permeated into every section of the people, are not sufficiently elevated to permit women the freedom that they have in Christian lands. Now Christianity has already begun to work a remarkable change in delivering the women of China from the bondage that an idolatrous system had imposed upon them. Whether young or old they are required to attend church on Sundays. No distinctions are allowed. The young girl of eighteen, that would never be seen out of the doors for years, the newly-married wife, the maiden that has just been betrothed, in common with elderly ladies whose sons and daughters are grown up, and the old grandmothers that travel as they like, all are expected to attend at the regular services, and no dispensation excepting absolute necessity will be given to allow them not to be present.
Sunday at present is the happiest day in the week for the Christian women.
They get out of their narrow, confined houses into the sunlight. They meet large numbers of their own s.e.x in the church. They see new faces and get fresh ideas, and broader views of life. They look at the various styles of dresses, and the result is that on the morrow, when the peddler comes round, he will get orders for new kinds of materials that they would never have dreamed of had they not seen how pretty and becoming they looked on the women they had met in the church.
But listen! there is the blast of a conch sh.e.l.l, blown by a man whose lungs are sound, and who knows how to manipulate it so that he shall produce the greatest volume of noise, and send it echoing along the street. No need to ask who the man is, for every one is perfectly aware that it is the pork peddler who is drawing near, and now every housewife who is preparing dinner begins to count her cash to see if she can afford the luxury of pork to-day.
Pork to a Chinaman is what beef is to an Englishman. Excepting in the ports and in those centres where Europeans congregate, beef is but very rarely seen. In the interior of China, pork shops abound in every city in the Empire, but one would have to look long before he could find a beef shop. By a thoroughly conservative and orthodox Chinese the killing of cattle in order to sell their flesh for food is considered highly immoral.
He would tell you that these animals help in the tilling of the soil, that therefore they are the producers of the food of the nation, and as a matter of grat.i.tude for their services they should be saved from the indignity of being slaughtered for food. That is the way in which an orthodox Confucianist would talk when the question of eating beef might be the subject of conversation.
There are no such metaphysical discussions with regard to the pig, or indeed any other animal that is used for food. Swine have precisely the same animal properties that they have in any other country, and those brought up in this extreme Eastern land might be transported to the cabins of the Irish and they would never discover that a ”furriner” had invaded their homes.