PRICE OF CHINAMEN.

INSURANCES ON CORPSES WORTH .'£2oo APIECE There are apparently two values placed upon a Chinaman in the Empire City. The "live value" placed upon the Celestial fruit-seller by the Wellington citizen is not anything to write home about. But the value placed by Brother John upon himself live or dead is something to make .an ordinary New- Zealander envious. As a rule, if a hale, hearty man, with 40 years work ahead of him, can insure for £500 he is looked npon as affluent, and his offspring promising candidates for the silver-spoon. But such a value does not hold good with a, Chinaman. A dead Chinaman is worth far more than ninny a live European. An illustration of this is afforded by a Wellington insurance company which this week issued three policies, each for £200. on the risk That the bodies of Young Wong, Young Chung, and Young King, the three Chinese who were asphyxiated last week in Tinakori road, would be safely landed at Hongkong. The coffins containing the bodies will be shipped to Sydney, and from there transhipped to the Japanese mail steamer Nikko Maru. The insurances were effected by the local Chinese Association, and the total cost of landing the bodies in Hongkong will amount to over £100. Tlie three men were natives of Gow Fong. in the province of Canton, and they will eventually find a resting-place there among the remains of their ancestors, for the veneration of ancestors is a strong Feature in Chinese national ideals—in fact, it. is almost a form of religion. A Chinaman always hopes to sleep the last long sleep on his native soil, and he usually strives to save enough money to carry his bones back to China from any land where he may have made a temporary home. Northern Advocate , 15 May 1915, Page 7