EXCITING TIMES AT FOO CHOW
Allen, George Hoyt
Exciting Times at Foo Chow By GEORGE HOYT ALLEN (Copyrighted, 1910, The Robert M. La Follette Co.) FOO CHOW is a tea town, noted also for its lacquer and brass ware and its grotesque carved...
...I interpreted the motion to mean but one thing—a dive for the soup...
...At that time, "Hoboken" was placarded to kill all the foreigners in the port of Foo Chow—to annihilate them...
...Then they "tamp" quick-lime in around him and give him all the water he will drink...
...Gracy looking like it...
...There is no excitement here now...
...I got away from the port that time with 20 tons of curios and I am back here again today...
...The Dr...
...A splendid type of Chinese servant brought me a plate of soup...
...wasn't eating soup, he was saying grace...
...Automatically my mouth opened as a spoonful of my soup approached it...
...Noiselessly, slowly, and reverently I lowered that spoonful of soup, and bored that superior Chinese servant (who was taking it all in) with a stern and strong side wise stare which said, "I always do it this way when grace is being asked...
...Byrne, according to a press despatch, in explanation of the unusual request of his company to the public utilities commission to be allowed to reduce the price of its gas...
...Gracy...
...There were about 150 foreigners in the port at that time...
...Health came back and he still holds down this port...
...Never before in my experience did spiritual and physical food come so near getting mixed...
...is not an M. D. He is a Dr...
...He was alone at the consulate for the time, his family being away at a summer resort...
...THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH*' THERE is a gas company in New York that would rather give its customers cheaper gas than to spend its money to influence legislators...
...They are busy with the tea crop...
...Gracy, I only knew that they called him "Dr...
...was served likewise...
...The table was spread for but two...
...When I went for my mail, Dr...
...of Divinity, a large bouquet of flowers and possibly a certain ability on my part to look and act as if I were doing something else instead of the thing I was doing, saved me, but it was a close shave...
...Particularly not by Chinese methods...
...Gracy told the mandarin to change the placards), the mercury in the thermometer is si cousin to the Shanghai wheelbarrow boys—mighty ambitious...
...Behind that large magnificent bouquet, so large that we couldn't see each other's hands, the Dr.'s body sort o' swayed...
...Arriving at the consulate, to keep that dinner date, I was ushered into a large and magnificently-furnished dining room...
...They have so many funny ways of doing it...
...Gracy was the Consul...
...Dinner at the Consulate DINNER in the Far East is always a good deal of a function...
...The Dr...
...Gracy, our consul at Foo Chow, took the American Mag, together with a retinue of the attaches of the consulate, and went over to "Hoboken" and sent word to the mandarin of that part of Foo Chow to call upon him...
...I never did hanker to be exterminated...
...The man who has been used like a fence post, in July, in Foo Chow, with quick-lime "tamped" in all around him good and tight would perspire freely,—indeed that's the intention in this mode of extermination...
...Gracy told the mandarin that he, Gracy, was the United States of America and requested that the placards stuck up around "Hoboken," advising that the foreigners in the port of Foo Chow be exterminated, be taken down and in their place other placards be posted advising that the foreigners should not be exterminated...
...Outside of a missionary's home, today is the first time I have heard a blessing asked at meal in the East, and I can assure you it sounds good to me...
...Mandarin said: "Can do...
...But I'll bet Dr...
...Gracy as he held converse with that mandarin...
...At each plate wine glasses were ranged in varying heights from high ones down to little ones...
...There wasn't another ship leaving for twelve days...
...It climbs and climbs and climbs, absolutely nothing but the top satisfies it...
...told me that the ministry had been his line prior to taking the Foo Chow consulship...
...It's only occasionally you meet up with such an one...
...The first time I came to Foo Chow I was home sick for a little while...
...I was dropped into the town of a summer's morn by a Chinese trading vessel which sailed away...
...The devotional attitude of a Dr...
...They told me when I came here," the Dr...
...FOO CHOW is a tea town, noted also for its lacquer and brass ware and its grotesque carved images...
...If they chose that fence-post-lime-combination, on a funeral warrant it would be my luck to draw a ticket for that way if I happened to be mixed up in the deal...
...Anyway, I was glad the excitement didn't spread...
...The table was spread with snowy linen...
...This plan of doing away with a fellow is very trying in hot weather, and in July, in Foo Chow, (it was July when Dr...
...of Divinity...
...In the center of the table was a tremendous bouquet of beautiful flowers...
...Allen...
...We think it better to reduce the price of gas and satisfy the public," said Thomas E. Byrne, general superintendent of the Kings County Lighting Company, "even if it cuts our dividend rate, than to pay money to corrupt legislators for favorable legislation...
...Can do...
...Gracy...
...And then I bowed my head...
...On this visit to Foo Chow of which I am writing, my mail had been sent in care of our consul...
...I wasn't half as anxious that morning to buy rare old Foo Chow curios as I was to get a ship out of Foo Chow for Shanghai...
...I was told that Dr...
...I learned that he was this kind of a Dr...
...I can't think of anything looking braver than that—if I could I'd imagine Dr...
...A Quick-Lime Death not a Quick Death TO GET BACK to those placards, I was glad to learn that they were changed...
...The Dr...
...said, "that I couldn't run it on 'Puritanical lines'—for instance that I couldn't successfully run a consulate in the East without serving wine at dinners...
...explained to me that we would dine alone...
...I didn't see Dr...
...The Dr...
...Incidentally he mentioned in his message that he would give the mandarin fifteen minutes to pay his respects...
...The servants put them there for decoration, but you will find no wine served at my table, nor has there ever been or will there be...
...But the Dr...
...The perspiration slakes the lime and it's a most distressing way to be exterminated...
...I didn't take any chances in lifting it too quickly, either...
...This statement was made by Mr...
...Gracy looked like George Washington crossing the Delaware, with the American flag in evidence...
...A grand old man is Dr...
...The American consulate in Foo Chow is a mansion, cared for by a retinue of some forty servants...
...After .the amen had had ample time to travel around the bouquet twice I looked over the top of those flowers and said, "Dr., are you a Doctor of Divinity or a sawbones doctor...
...I was going East that trip...
...One way is to dig a pit and stand a fellow in it like a fence post, without his clothes on, with his head just above ground...
...Says the Mandarin ON THAT second morning, Dr...
...I find him out of town this trip...
...But there was nothing doing in departures for Shanghai, up the coast, or to Hong Kong, down the coast, and the only way to get out of Foo Chow was by boat...
...You will find wine glasses at your right, Mr...
...Foo Chow has a million inhabitants and is built something on the plan of New York, i. e., it has outlying "burgs" like Hoboken and Jersey City...
...They feel that they "owe the foreigners one...
...If a million Chinese should really get started to exterminate 150 foreigners, there's no telling just how they might go about it...
...A Massachusetts man, failing health, a friend at court, and this station in the East...
...Of course, being a total stranger in those parts, I didn't know what kind of a Dr...
...I heard of it on the evening of the day on which it took place...
...I learned on the morning after my arrival of the excitement over in "Hoboken...
...I closed my mouth quick-like a steel trap...
...Gracy is a dear man...
...Arriving in Foo Chow, I immediately asked, "Who is our Consul, and where is he at...
...in a way which came pretty near being embarrassing to me...
...Gracy kindly invited me to dine with him on a certain evening at the consulate...
...was Dr...
...I was also instructed where to find him...
...In the far East, at a foreigner's house (aside from a missionary's), at this juncture in the function I am describing, it's a safe bet that the next move is to eat...
...The mandarin got around in eight minutes—seven minutes to spare...
Vol. 2 • October 1910 • No. 41
