LECTURE ON INDIA AND CHINA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14684, 18 November 1909, Page 5

LECTURE ON INDIA AND CHINA

Some interest! I; information about mission work in India ami China, richly illustrated, comprised an entertainment giver by the Hew G. J. Williams, the representative of the London Missionary Society, in the Alhambra Theatre on Monday evening. The pictures- cinematograph films—posft.os:«ed u unique value,'inasmuch as they showed the Chinese in domestic life, a subject seldom fully exploited by the professional makers o[ moving pictures. A lengthy picture, for instance, showed two comcly Chinese maidens eating macaroni with chopsticks. "There's a good deal of suction going on ihere," commented the lecturer, " only you can't hear it. Ami" (rumiiiiscently)

•' when yott try to eat macaroni, even without chopsticks, you lutvo to use suction." Another picture showed a Chinese funeral. One saw the line of coolies carrying chairs, and with them a mixed crowd, bomo members of which were in the conventional white of the mourner, others whose appearance suggested nothing in particular. The audience was pcrimu'cu to speculate on the identity of the corpse at the tail end of the procession. A very telling picturc was that* showing an opium \ictim, lying in a most objectionable condition, feebly using his pricker and inhaling the soul-destroying fumes of the drug. The opium tiabiv, said the lecturer, attacked all men, irrespective of rank and station. Great scholars, equally with uneducated men of the slums, bccame slave- of the awful thing—were reduced to a state of imbecility. " You sec," he said, pointing to the picture, " they don't really mind what, rags and filth they livo in so long jis they may hava opium."

In a very realistic manner was depicted the process by which unfortunate little Chinese girls have their feet found up in order that they may become horribly malformed—or, in the eyes of the Chinamen, beautiful. The picture—but Mr Williams hinted that it might have been "arranged" —showed ii grim Chinese woman relentlessly wrapping a tight-drawn cloth round the feet of a screaming, struggling child, while in the background an extremely stout person complacently watched the operation. "Of course," added tho speaker, "you know tho reason for this. It is said that tin men of China have tho feet of their women bound up like this to keep them from gadding about," for, as was obvious from t'lio picture, women so treated can only hobble.

The second series of pictures shown dealt principally with various aspects of temple life in Benares. Benares, as every schoolboy knows, is tho great Hindoo city of temples. Ghats line the Gutiiges's banks in all directions: places where Mahomet and Buddha and all the other deities are worshipped arc scattered 'broadcast over the city. Some are of immense age. One hug? pi.!® pointed out by the lecturer was, h-*> said, 111 existence when Alfred the Gre.it was spending his time alternately teaching his school and fighting the Danes. In another placo was shown an old astronomical observatory filled with ancient broken instruments of which nobody knows tho exact purpose. In some places Mr Williams covered ground already traversed by others, but his lecturo was in every sell:® instructive swid interesting. Mr Williams stated at the conclusion of his lecture that he was under a debt of gratitude to Mr Hamor, manager of the Princess Theatre, who had lent him the lantern gratis, and to Mr Maitland Jones, who had opsr-tfsd tho cinematograph free of charge.