Although the Chinaman does not naturally possess an ear for music,
according to our standard, yet his imitative power enables him to adapt
himself very readily to the production of melody. One of the Coolies
employed in the great HERVEY wash-house at South Belleville, N.J., was
observed to watch with great interest an itinerant performer on the
accordion. Shortly afterwards, catching up a sucking-pig by the tail and
snout, he manipulated it precisely as the player did the accordion,
producing--accordion to the testimony of several credible
witnesses,--strains quite as good as, if not worse than, those drawn out
by that musician.
As soon as the 200,000 Chinamen ordered by Mynheer KOOPMAN-SCHOOP arrive
in this country, a good business can be driven by Yankee toothpick
makers in supplying them with chopsticks. This word was originally
"stop-chick," being so called from the use occasionally made of it by
Chinamen for knocking down young poultry. It became corrupted, like
everything that is good and pure, by contact with extreme civilization.
Anybody who can make a shoe-peg or wooden toothpick can make a
chopstick. It is to be hoped that the chopstick may ultimately be
adopted here instead of the knife and fork. It would preclude the
possibility of people carrying their food into their mouths with the
knife--an outrage so commonly to be remarked at hotel tables.
A very intelligent Chinaman told the writer, not long since, that there
is absolutely nothing to be seen or heard of in this country that the
Chinese were not familiar with several thousand years ago.
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