- The Infallible Remedy
TOOTHACHE is an universal plague. Every country has a special " nostrum " for its cure. China knows the plague, and China has a nostrum, which may well challenge all others for originality and efficacy. The quacks who in this case advance their specific are all women. I speak of them and their doings as I have seen and known them in the province of Chekeang. Whether they are found elsewhere in China I know not. The remedy they employ has never yet, to my knowledge, been published to the world ; and we must not feel sur-prised if, after this paper has once got abroad, a shipload of these charlatans should be sent for, and make their appearance " one fine morning," in the Thames. These female quacks maintain that the usual cause of toothache is a little worm or maggot, which has its nest in the gum under the root, and if this little offender can be driven or coaxed out, the gnawing pain will immediately cease. But how he is to be driven or coaxed out is the secret of their trade, the knowledge of which they confine most rigidly to those of their own profession. We had not been resident many years in the country before we heard talk of these women and their wonderful performances, and as my friend and I took our customary walks together, our con-versation not unfrequently turned their way. My friend stoutly maintained that it was all impos-ture ; it was impossible, he said, that maggots in the gums or teeth should have escaped the obser-vation of our dentists, who had examined hundreds of thousands, not merely of teeth, but of mouths for so many years. - The Collector of refuse hair
To what strange shifts and expedients are many driven by the hard pressures of life to earn the means of barely supporting existence ! Any one, who is acquainted with the lower phases of London life, is well aware that thousands scrape together a living out of the dust-heaps in Pad-dington. Some in rags, some in bones, some in street manure, some in scraps of tin and iron, find support for themselves and their families. Man is not responsible for his natural powers, nor is it any disgrace to be so deficient in intellect as to be obliged to follow a mean employment. No toil debases man save that which injures his moral character. Our picture presents to our notice one of the meanest of Chinese callings ; and in the refuse hair-gatherer, our artist has not failed to give you a specimen of humanity in one of its lowest forms. But even such a case as this is not without its interest. From the maker of wigs, false beards, and moustache, and from the worker in ornamental hair generally, such a calling may justly attract observation. Without the aid of the poor hair-gatherer, how should that fashionable young man, who, Absolom like, prides himself upon his hair, and yet unlike Absolom has but little of his own to boast of, appear in proper guise before his compeers in society ? How, again, shall the coy maiden find, unless by the same help, those magnificent "butter-flies' wings " * of glossy hair, which ornament the back of her head? But I have unwittingly anticipated : by this time the reader surmises the functions of our friend going his wearisome rounds with his light wicker-basket. He is either buying or begging all the refuse combings of the women's long black hair, which others, skilful in their art, make up into tails, either to supply a need which unfortunately may have arisen, or to increase the proportions of that which nature had too sparely bestowed. As you pass down a Chinese street, you will occasionally see a shop where were sold long switchy horse-tails ; such, at least, they long ap-peared to the writer of these sketches ; inquiry at last dissipated the delusion ; appearances answered to their proverbial deceitfulness, and these long-switch tails were formed of the refuse combings collected by our persevering friend, and hung in the shop ready to be braided into the usual queue worn by the men. - The Diviner
The sapient-looking gentleman, is one of the supposed fortune-tellers in China. Their name is legion, and in these sketches a few of the more prominent characters of this class will be introduced. When the mind of man is not enlightened by science and revelation, experience teaches us that it is a prey to various foolish and degrading super-stitions. No wonder, then, that in a country like China, where science has made comparatively so little progress, and where revelation has scarcely yet diffused her faintest beams, superstitions of every kind should be rife. It is a genial cli-mate and a kindly soil, in which they spring up `rank` and luxuriant. The workings of natural laws are at best but partially understood. For example, the thunder, the fire, the earthquake, the eclipse, are supposed to be not so much subject to certain laws, as under the authority and control of some capricious deity. The ancestor or god of thunder, tray-tsoo, is worshipped with peculiar honours in the summer months, when storms are prevalent. Then crowds of earnest devotees besiege his shrine. The spirit of fire has innumerable votaries, who deprecate his wrath in the dry season of autumn. The earthquake is ascribed to the convulsive struggles of a huge tortoise to shift the earth from off his back. The eclipse is said to be caused by a voracious dog, in his attempts to swallow the orb of day. And though, with regard to the eclipse, there are some who know better, and if they cannot themselves explain the true reason, know that it has to do with fixed laws, and occurs at regular periods, noted in the imperial alma-nacks, yet the same excitement still prevails when-ever the phenomenon occurs : gongs are beaten, and crackers are fired from every house to frighten away the hungry beast.