and served up with their rice, making a dish very much like the Erench one
of Poulet-avrriz in appearance; hut as for the taste, that question must be
referred to Chinese authorities, as no Amerioan or European has yet been
found, it is believed, to test it by actual experiment.
Those Chinese employed in the ships of the squadron have always
found the navy ration insufficient to satisfy their gluttony, notwithstanding
that of the United States vessels is far more abundant and of better quality
than the ration of the navy of any other country. A mess of ten American
seamen usually stop each two rations, for which they receive the commutation
in money. The Chinese, however, although the most sordid of beings,
not only devoured the entire ration served out to them, but went about the
decks collecting what they could pick up from the leavings of the messes,
and invariably beset the ship’s cooks for the scrapings of the coppers.
The Chinese servants employed in the Commodore’s cabin ate, in miscellaneous
food, including rice, bread, beef, pork, and the leavings of the table,
three times aB much as the other attendants. In fact, the enormous quantities
of rice they consumed, with whatever else they could seize upon, is
almost incredible. As for sugar and other sweets, there would have been
no end to their pilfering, if they had not been carefully watched by the
steward. This gross feeding exhibited its effects upon the Chinese servants,
as it does upon dumb animals, for they soon became fat and lazy.
Most of the Chinese servants employed in the European and American
families settled in China, engage to find their own food. Their wages vary
from four to six and seven dollars per month; the cooks, however, receive
from seven to ten. All articles for household consumption, in the foreign
establishments, are procured through the agency of a person called a comprador,
who hires the servants, pays them their wages, and becomes security
for their honesty; he keeps a regular account of the domestic expenditure,
and settles with his employers at established periodical seasons. In the
large mercantile establishments, the profits of these compradors are very
considerable. However ample a dinner may have been furnished, it woujd
be difficult to secure at some of the residences, where little attention is paid
to the economy of the household by the proprietors themselves, anything for
a late guest arriving half an hour after the meats had been served. Scarcely
are the dishes taken from the dining room, before they are on their way to
the neighboring eating houses, there to be rehashed into stews, and sold to
the middle classes. In the hongs of the merchants, who are called upon, as
a part of their business, to keep up abundant tables, great waste must
necessarily take place, but as the expenditure goes to the profit and loss of
the concern, it is of little consequence. The missionaries and others, of
small means, are necessarily hard put to it to make both ends meet.
In the houses of the foreign merchants, where there happen to be no
ladies, female servants are unknown; and what would appear to be repugnant
to our own sense of delicaoy, there are even some English and American
families without female domestics, although ladies form part of the
household. The reason assigned is the difficulty of obtaining trusty maid
servants.
I t was, however, observed, that in all the families containing children,
either maid servants or women of Macao, called Amahs or Ayahs, were employed.
The wages of the latter at Macao are four dollars a month, but if taken
to Canton or Hong Kong they demand additional compensation. Many of
the women speak a little of the lingua called Chinese English, or in the cant
phrase, pigeon, which sounds very ludicrous to those first hearing it, but one
goon finds himself drawn necessarily into this manner of making himself understood.
The Macao women possessing this elegant accomplishment demand
.higher wages.
There is certainly some excuse for employing male attendants about the
bed chamber and dressing rooms, when it is known that the Chinese lords of
creation are the only tailors, dress-makers, washers, ironers and doers up of
fine linen. In Canton, however, there are some women hired by the tailors
to do plain sewing,'for which they receive nearly as little as our needle
workers, and those poor creatures in Great Britain, over whose misery and
living death Hood sang his dirge. Their pay is from five to seven cents a
day. The male tailors are somewhat better paid, and will go to any house
and work for twelve hours at the rate of twenty-five cents a day, they finding
their own food, or, as they call it, their “ chow-chow:' I t is not uncommon
to see a dirty small-footed female sitting at some corner in the street, with a
supply of sewing materials and a few rags, ready to stitch up a rent or put a
patch upon the garments of any passer by who may want her services. Toward
night she may be seen hobbling home, with her stock in trade, on her
disgusting stumps, of which she is seemingly very proud.
All the Chinese women, in fact, pride themselves very much on their goatlike
hoofs, and have the greatest possible contempt for a natural foot. Little
girls are said to importune their mothers with tears in their eyes to compress
their feet, as promising them a higher position in society, although females
of the lower orders are frequently observed with the aristocratic hoof,
but these are such as have, possibly, seen better days. I t is difficult for
strangers to get a Bight of these singular deformities, as the Chinese women
manifest the greatest reluctance to show them; but Dr. Parker prevailed upon
a girl of thirteen, who was a patient in the hospital, to unbandage in the
presence of her mother, in order to satisfy the curiosity of the Commodore,
who had quite enough in one glance of that shapeless stump, which appeared
more like a specimen of bad surgery, such as Dr. Parker would have been
doubtless ashamed of, than, as the Chinese considered it, an elegance of
fashion.