THE HONGKEW MARKET. 209 



than is to be found upon the best fed 4 lb. chicken, while the cost of the former is usually 

 very materially less } Poultry, generally, is a pretty big order, and I do not feel that I am 

 getting my share of the public patronage unless I get rid of, to mention one item only, 

 2,000 turkeys in the winter months." 



"But," was my rejoinder, "I notice that your prices differ considerably from those 

 which appear in the authorized published market lists. How do you account for that?" 

 "Well," he replied, "I do not see any advantage to anyone in that list except to the cook 

 or houseboy. Did the great society ladies condescend to do a bit of occasional marketing 

 for themselves their eyes would soon be opened to the discrepancy in prices — call it 

 difference, if you like — between what is actually paid by their servant, who enigmatically 

 enough is always the "best" boy or the "best" cook in China, and the amount with which 

 their monthly account is actually debited. That difference or discrepancy, or even only a 

 fraction of it saved, what a wholesome and acceptable addition it would make to the sum 

 set aside for charitable or even utilitarian purposes ! For many a deserving institution for 

 the assistance of the poor, whether male or female, native or foreigner, might be materially 

 helped along were but a little more attention paid to marketing and the real cost of food by 

 those who in the long run will have to pay the piper as long as that great domestic duty of 

 marketing is relegated, unchecked, to the tender mercies of the best Chinese servant in the 

 world. Still when the servant is content and his employers are content, why stir up the 

 waters of the Lake Camarilla ? Again, the published list of prices has its humorous side for, 

 apart from such essentials as beef, mutton, coal and firewood, against which an 'asking 

 price * is invariably fixed in the newspapers, you will find against only too many other 

 articles the legend none. No : the lists should be kept up to date. 



"On the other hand there are hundreds of thrifty housewives, boarding-house-keepers, 

 restaurant caterers and others who get the identical articles at lower prices, nay at much 

 lower prices, than those which ordinarily figure in the houseboy's account. 



"Now here is a practical proof of the advantage of marketing oneself. Mandarin fish 

 the most popular as it is the most delicious of fresh water fish, has quite recently been in 

 abundant supply at 20 cents a catty or 15 cents a pound. In how many cook's accounts, I 

 wonder, would you find any such modest charge as this? I could mention a whole string 

 of both necessaries and delicacies that are very much cheaper than they are too often 

 supposed to be, but the case I have instanced sufficiently illustrates my point." 



Pressed for further "fish stories" he added "Possibly the most wonderful thing about 

 fish in China is not so much the abundance of the supply, which is really stupendous, as its 

 extraordinary variety. Beyond the perch, as represented by the Mandarin fish, and a few 

 kindred species of similar clean feeders, the great residuum of the fresh water fish is 

 composed of gross bottom feeders, whose capacious gullets engulph untold quantities of 

 slime and filth. Hence the mealiness and tastelessness of their flesh and that softness 

 which is so repugnant to the foreign palate. Despite the fresh water fish's innumerable 

 enemies of his own kind, the fatal drop, push and seine nets, the baited sunken lines along 

 the creek margins, the frequent fish stake with its side arrangements of cane reeds which 

 lead into inextricable mazes from which there is no escape, and finally their persecution 

 by the insatiable cormorant the year round, and the havoc played by the diving ducks in 



