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All By Contraries

All By Contraries image
Parent Issue
Day
8
Month
December
Year
1845
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The Chinese are a queer people, for they not only stand to the under side of the oarth with their feet upwards nnd thcir hcads downwards, like n fly on the ceiling, while we walk on the top of the earth with our hands downwards; but according to extracis from ihe lectu're of Mr. Cushing, lale United States Commissioner nt the Celestial empire, ne'arly all their actions are contraiy to ours. Here are specimens : "To an Eiiropean or an American, just lnnded in China, every thing appears strange. He finds himself not only at the antipodes, physically speaking, but at the antipodes in a moral sense. He sees around him countless myriads of men in a strange garb, and with a general appear anco unlike to all that to which he has heretofore been accustomed. f Ie observcsr the most studied uniformity among t"hevnrious classes, and the progross of evcry thing which falls under his observnlion, so slow nnd unvaricd, strikes him n singular contrast witli our own changing manncrs and locomotive speed. A thousand things adrnonish him that he is in a strange land. He hears the constant sounding of gongs, he observes innumerab!e boats on the rivers, the dwelling places of millions of Chinese; carts moved on land by sails, as well ns boats on the water. If the pilot looks to the compass to direct his course upon the deop ; he looks to the pointing oí the South pole - if he receives a letter he will find it written in lines running from top to bottom of the sheet, reading from right to left, with the date to the bottom of the letter - no alphabet being used but idiographic characters. The mourning, instead of being biack, as with us, is white with the Chinese - the shoe even is whitened with some substance, to correspond with othcr )oriions of dress. "He sees thesaucer placed on the cup, nstead of the cup on the saucer - shuttlecocks played with the feet instead of the wnds - ladieö' feet compressed, instead of their waists - leaves of a book cut open and trimmed on the back - a person swimming and strikes his hands vertically instead of horizontally - the top of the hend shaved - and when a friend meets you ili the streei, he does not shake your hand, but shakes his hand at you - the infanlry armed with matchlocks, the cavalry with bow and arrow - and a colonel ai the head of his regiment not unfrequcntlj brandising a pan instead of a sword. H will not only note these exterior' forms o difFerence, but will learn that nobility i not inherited from the father by the son but rather, i f one may so speak, by th father from the son - good deeds refleel ing back upon n remote ancestry. Coi ruption of blood, for crimes committec aflects ancestors long since dead an gone, though it does not necessarily aflec poslerity. All these things will strike on upon a curious view; but it is just to treethe subject in a different manner, or injustice will be done to a great and polished people."

Article

Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News