Doubtless this is more or less true of farming everywhere, but the Chinese farmer is industrious with an industry which it would be difficult to surpass.
That which is true of the farmer class, is true with still greater emphasis of the mere labourer, who is driven by the constant and chronic reappearance of the wolf at his door to spend his life in an everlasting grind. As the farmer bestows the most painstaking thought and care upon every separate stalk of cabbage, picking off carefully each minute insect, thus at last tiring out the ceaseless swarms by his own greater perseverance, so does the labourer watch for the most insignificant job, that he may have something for his stomach and for his back, and for other stomachs and backs that are wholly dependent upon him. Those who have occasion to travel where cart-roads exist, will often be obliged to rise soon after midnight and pursue their journey, for such, they are told, is the custom. But no matter at what hour one is on the way, there are small bodies of peasants patrolling the roads, with fork in hand and basket on their back, watching for opportunities to collect a little manure. When there is no other work pressing, this is an invariable and an inexhaustible resource.
It is by no means uncommon to see those who are hard pressed to find the means of support, following two different lines of occupation which dovetail into each other. Thus the boatmen of Tientsin, whose business is spoiled by the closing of the rivers, take to the swift ice-sled, by which means it is possible to be transported rapidly at a minimum cost. In the same way, most of the rural population of some districts spend all the time which can be spared from the exigencies of farm work in making hats or in plaiting the braid, now so large an article of export. Chinese women are not often seen without a shoe-sole in their hands on which they are perpetually taking stitches, even while talking gossip at the entrance of their
