OPIUM SMOKING — SINGULAR RESULT OF THE HABIT — MODE OF USING THE OPIUM PIPE — TOBACCO SMOKING — THE WATER PIPE — WEIGHTS AND MEASURES — THE STEELYARD AND ITS USES — BOAT-LIFE IN CHINA — CORMORANT FISHING — FISH SPEARING — CATCHING FISH WITH THE FEET — THE DUCK BOATS — AGRICULTURE — MODE OF IRRIGATION — CHINESE MUSIC AND INSTRUMENTS — A SKILFUL VIOLINIST — CHINESE SINGING — ART IN CHINA — PORCELAIN — CARVING IN IVORY AND JADE — MAGIC MIRRORS — RESPECT TO AGE.

We will conclude this subject with a short account of the miscellaneous manners and customs of the Chinese.

Among the chief of their characteristic customs is opium smoking, a vice which is terribly prevalent, but which is not so universally injurious as is often stated. Of course, those who have allowed themselves to be enslaved by it become gradually debased, but the proportion of those who do so is very small, though, by the terrible sight which they present, they are brought prominently into notice. It seems, moreover, that the quantity consumed at a time is not of so much importance as the regularity of the habit.

Let a man once fall into the way of smoking opium, though it be but one pipe, at a certain hour of the day, that pipe will be an absolute necessity, and he takes it, not so much to procure pleasure, as to allay the horribly painful craving from which he suffers. In fact, a man destroys his health by opium smoking in China, much as a drunkard does in England, not so much by taking immoderate doses occasionally, but by making a habit of taking small doses repeatedly. From such a habit as this very few have the courage to break themselves, the powers of their mind being shattered as well as those of the body.

A confirmed opium smoker really cannot exist beyond a certain time without the deadly drug, and those who are forced to exert themselves are generally provided with some opium pills, which they take in order to give them strength until they can obtain the desired pipe. An anecdote illustrative of this practice is narrated by Mr. Cobbold in his “Pictures of the Chinese”:—

“A small salesman, or pedler, was seen toiling along with great difficulty through the gates of Ningpo, as if straining every nerve to reach some desired point. He was seen to stagger and fall, and his bundle flew from him out of his reach. While many pass by, some good Samaritan comes to him, lifts up his head, and asks what is the matter, and what he can do for him. He has just strength to whisper, ‘My good friend, please to untie that bundle; you will find a small box in the centre; give me two or three of the pills which are in it, and I shall be all right.’ It was soon done; the opium pills had their desired effect, and he was soon able to rise and pursue his journey to his inn.”

This most graphically describes the extreme state of exhaustion which comes on if the usual period of taking the pipe has passed by. The pedler thought, no doubt, he had strength just to reach his inn, where he would have thrown himself upon a bed and called for the opium pipe; but he miscalculated by a few minutes his power of endurance, and the pills (often resorted to in like cases of extremity), when supplied him by his friend, perhaps saved him from an untimely end. Very similar scenes have happened to foreigners travelling in sedan chairs through the country, the bearers having been obliged to stop and take a little of the opium, in order to prevent complete exhaustion. A long hour or more, in the middle of the day, has frequently to be allowed, nominally for the sake of dinner and rest, but really, in some instances, for the opium pipe.

The pipe which is used for smoking opium is not in the least like that which is employed for tobacco. The stem is about as large as an ordinary office-ruler, and it has a hole near one end, into which the shank of the bowl is fixed. The bowl itself is about as large as a Ribstone pippin, and nearly of the same shape, the bud representing the tiny aperture in which the opium is placed, and the stalk representing the shank which fits into the stem. These pipes are made of various materials, some being mere bamboo and wood, while others have bowls of the finest porcelain, and the stem richly enamelled. My own specimen has the stem twenty inches in length, and an inch and a half in diameter, the bore not being large enough to admit an ordinary crowquill. The bowl is of some light-colored wood, well varnished, and covered with landscape scenes in black lines. Although it has not been in use for many years, it still smells strongly of opium, showing that it had been saturated with the fumes of the drug before it came into my possession.

The mode of using it is as follows: The smoker has a couch prepared, together with a little lamp, and his usual supply of the prepared opium. He lays his head on the pillow, with a long, needle-like implement places over the aperture of the bowl a little piece of the opium, about as large as a mustard seed, holds it to the flame of the lamp, and, with a long and steady inspiration, the whole of the opium is drawn into the lungs in the state of vapor. The smoke is retained for a few seconds, and then expelled. The generality of opium smokers are content with one pipe, but the votary of the drug will sometimes take as many as twelve in succession before he is completely under the influence of the opium. As he finishes the last morsel of opium, the pipe falls from his hand, and he passes into that dreamland for which he has bartered everything that makes life precious.

The terrible scenes which have so often been related take place for the most part at the opium shops, places which are nominally illegal, but which carry on their trade by payment of periodical bribes to the ruling official of the place. In Tien-tsin alone there were upwards of three hundred of these shops, in which opium could be purchased or sold wholesale, or could be refined for smoking, and consumed on the premises.

There is only one redeeming point in opium smoking, namely, that it does not produce the brutal scenes which too often take place in the gin palaces of this country. Mr. Fleming remarks of this vice: “If opium smoking is a great evil among the Chinese people, as it is no doubt, yet they endeavor to hide it, they are ashamed of it, and it offends neither the eyes nor the hearing by offensive publicity. It is not made a parade of by night and by day, neither does it give rise to mad revels and murderous riots. Its effects on the health may be more prejudicial than our habits of alcohol drinking, but yet it is hard to see any of those broken-down creatures that one reads about.”

Indeed, the Chinese themselves, who are apt to drink more than they ought of a fiery liquid called samshu, say that the spirit is far more injurious than the drug.

We will now see how the Chinese smoke tobacco. The pipe which is ordinarily used has a very little bowl of brass, at the end of a slight stem about as large as a drawing pencil. The bowl is scarcely large enough to hold the half of a boy’s playing marble, and is almost exactly like the Japanese pipe, which will be presently described.

A pipe that is very much in fashion, especially with the women, is a kind of water-pipe made of brass, and enlarged at the bottom so as to stand upright. The enlarged portion is filled with water, through which the smoke passes, as in a hookah. The little brass tube which serves the purpose of a bowl can be drawn out of the body of the pipe, so as to be charged afresh; and in most cases each pipe is supplied with several bowls, so that they can be used successively as wanted. Only three whiffs are taken at a time; and indeed the quantity of tobacco used is so small, that more would be almost out of the question. For this pipe, tobacco is prepared in a peculiar manner, a minute quantity of arsenic being mixed with it.

One peculiarity about the Chinese is their almost universal employment of weight as a measure. With the exception of objects of art, nearly everything is bought by weight, and the consequence is, that the most absurd modes of increasing the weight are often employed. Fowls and ducks, for example, are sold alive by weight, so that the dishonest vendor has a habit of cramming with stones before he brings them to market. Fish are also taken to market while still living, and are improved in appearance by being blown up with bellows, and in weight by being crammed with stones. Through the lips of each fish a ring is passed, so that it may be at once taken from the water and hung upon the hook of the balance. Nor is the fish dealer particular as to the sufferings of the creatures which he sells, and he has not the least hesitation in cutting off a pound or two in case his customer does not wish to purchase an entire fish.

In these transactions the Chinese do not use scales, but employ a “steelyard” balance, made of various materials and various sizes, according to the object for which it was intended. That which is meant for ordinary market use is made of wood, and is marked at regular distances by small brass studs, so as to designate the exact places on which the weight should be hung. Those which are intended for finer work are of ivory.

It is kept in a case, which looks something like two wooden spoons laid upon each other, so that their bowls enclose any object placed between them. They are united by a rivet or pivot, which passes through the ends of the handles, enabling them to be separated at will by drawing them sideways. In order to prevent them from coming apart needlessly, a ring of bamboo is plaited loosely round the stem, so that when it is slipped toward the bowl, the two halves of the case are kept together, and when it is slid to the end of the stem, they can be separated. In one of the halves of the bowl a large hole is scooped, in which the pan of the balance lies, and a smaller hole is cut for the reception of the weight. The steelyard itself lies in a groove cut along the inside of the stem. The reader will see that when the apparatus is closed, it lies very compactly, and can be stuck into the girdle ready for use at any moment.

The “yard” of this balance is of ivory, and is longer and more slender than the chopsticks which have already been described. In my specimen it is eleven inches in length, and the sixth of an inch in diameter in the thickest part. Three distinct sets of marks are made upon it, and there are three separate fulcra, so that when the weight exceeds the amount which can be measured with one fulcrum, the second or third fulcrum can be used with its own set of marks.

The arrangement of these marks is a fertile source of dispute among the Chinese. There is no standard by which all the balances can be regulated, but each dealer has his own balance, and his own arrangement of the gradations upon it. The natural consequence is, that quarrels take place with every purchase. A vast amount of time is wasted upon disputes which might easily be avoided, were the government to establish a standard balance, by which all others might be graduated. Time, however, is not of the least importance to a Chinese, and as a prolonged bargain has a positive fascination for him, it is probable that such a regulation would not be popular, and would indeed be evaded in every mode which Chinese ingenuity could invent. The larger steelyards have a hook whereon to hang the article to be weighed, but those which are intended for weighing small and valuable objects are furnished with a shallow brass pan, attached to the end of the balance by four silken threads.

The extraordinary economy which distinguishes the Chinese is characteristically shown in the population which crowds the rivers near the principal towns. A vivid picture of Chinese boat-life is given by Mr. Tiffany, in his “American’s Sojourn in the Celestial Empire.” After describing the various kinds of boats that he has seen, he proceeds as follows:—

“We have passed through several miles of boats, and have not seen the quarter of them. It is, indeed, impossible to give an idea of their number. Some say that there are as many as seventy thousand of them at the city of Canton alone. But let us be content with forty thousand. Then fancy forty thousand wild swans, closely packed together, floating on some wide pond, and mostly restless, and you would say that they would cover many acres of their element. Now, by the enchantment of imagination, convert the pond into the roaring Pekiang River, the swans into boats of every shape and size, the notes of the birds into the yells, the shrieks, the piercing voices of the river people, and you may have the actual scene before you.

“And all these boats, miles upon miles, from border to border, are densely packed with human beings in every stage of life, in almost every occupation that exists upon the shore that they seldom trespass upon; and there they are born and earn their scanty bread, and there they die. The boats are moored side by side, in long-reaching thousands, so that the canal which they form stretches to a point in the distance. In the Shaneem quarter, above the foreign factories, they form large squares and avenues. Forty thousand floating tenements would, under any circumstances, be considered a singular sight, but here the swarming occupants give them the appearance of a mighty metropolis.”

It seems strange that so vast a population should live on the river, within pistol shot of the land, and yet that the greater number of them, from their birth to their death, have never known what it is to put a foot on the shore. When one of the older boatmen does so for the first time, he can hardly walk, the firm land being as difficult for him to tread as the deck of a tossing vessel is to a landsman.

Though the smallest of all the vessels that traverse a Chinese river, the sampans are perhaps the most conspicuous. They are rather small boats, drawing but little water, and for the most part propelled by two women, one sitting in the bow with her oar, and the other stationed in the stern, working the huge implement, half oar, half rudder, by which the boat is at once propelled and guided. Many of the boat-steerers are quite young girls, but they manage their craft with wonderful skill and power, hardly ever touching another boat, no matter how many may be darting about the river, and, with one mighty sweep of the huge scull, sending the boat clear of the obstacle from which escape seemed impossible but a second before. To the eye of a foreigner, the boatwomen are more pleasing in appearance than their sisters of the land, inasmuch as their feet are allowed to assume their proper shape, and exposure to the air and exercise take away the sickly, pasty complexion which often distinguishes the better-class women on shore, and is heightened by the white powder with which they persist in disfiguring themselves.

Some of the mandarin boats present the greatest possible contrast to the little sampans. They are, in fact, floating palaces, decorated in the most picturesque and sumptuous manner, and furnished with every luxury that a wealthy Chinaman can command. They often have thirty or forty oars of a side, are gaily bedecked with flags and brilliant lanterns, and mostly carry several cannon, together with abundance of fire-arms, in order to deter the pirates, who would be likely to swoop down upon an unarmed vessel, kill the passengers, and seize the boat for their own purposes.

In connection with the river life of the Chinese may be mentioned the various modes of fishing. The most celebrated method is that in which the fish are caught by cormorants. The fisherman has several of these birds, which are trained to the sport, and indeed are bred from the egg for the purpose, and sold at high prices when fully trained. The man goes out in a boat or on a raft, accompanied by his birds, and when he comes to a favorable spot, sends them into the water. They immediately dive, and dart upon the fish, which they are taught to bring to the boat.

Should the fish be too large, the man generally takes both fish and bird into his boat by means of a net at the end of a handle; and often when a bird has captured a very large fish, and is likely to lose it, one or two of its companions will come to its assistance, and by their united efforts hold the fish until their master can come up. A ring is put loosely round the throats of the birds, so that they cannot swallow the fish even if they desire to do so; but a well-trained cormorant will no more eat a fish than a well-trained pointer will eat a partridge. Each time that the cormorant brings a fish to the boat, it is rewarded with a mouthful of food, generally a mouthful of eel, its master raising the ring to allow it to swallow.

Fishing with cormorants is almost invariably carried on at high tide, and near bridges, as fish always love to congregate under shelter. At such times the bridges are always crowded with spectators watching the feats of the cormorants.

The raft on which the fisherman stands is made of five or six bamboos, about twenty feet in length. Now and then a cormorant which has not completed its course of training is so delighted when it catches a fish, that it swims away from its master as fast as it can. The fisherman, however, can propel his light raft faster than the cormorant can swim, and soon brings the truant to reason. This sport has recently been introduced into England, and bids fair to be successful.

Though caring little for sport, and pursuing game merely for the “pot,” the Chinese employ one or two methods of fishing which have the sporting element in them,—i. e. which give the quarry a fair chance of escape. Such, for example, is fish spearing, which is practised after rather a curious manner. The fisherman generally takes his stand upon a low bridge, and is furnished with a trident spear and a decoy fish. The decoy fish is prepared by lacing a strip of wood to either side of its dorsal fin, and to these sticks a slight line is fastened.

All being prepared, the fisherman takes his place on the bridge, drops the decoy into the water, and ties the end of the line to a stick like a fishing-rod, while he holds the three-pronged spear in his right hand. As large a fish as the sportsman can procure is used for the decoy; and as it swims about, its fellows come up to it, apparently attracted by its peculiar movements. As they come within reach, they are struck with the trident, and deposited in the fisherman’s basket.

A very inferior kind of fishing is carried on in places where the bed of the river is muddy. The fisherman wades into the river up to his knees or deeper, and every now and then strikes the surface of the water violently. As he does so, the fish which love such localities dive under the mud, where they are felt and held down by the bare feet of the man. As soon as he feels the wriggling of a fish under his foot, he stoops down, often having to plunge entirely under water, draws the fish from under his foot, and drops it into his basket. It is evident that only small fish can be caught by this method. I have tried it myself, and found that after a little trouble it was easy to catch any quantity of small flounders and similar fish,—too small, indeed, to be of any use, except to the thrifty Chinese, two of whom will buy a duck’s head and divide it for their dinner.

Among other river industries may be mentioned the system of duck feeding that is there carried on. Vast quantities of ducks’ eggs are hatched by artificial heat, and are purchased, when only a day or two old, by the persons who make their living by feeding and selling the birds. One favorite mode of duck feeding is to keep the birds in a boat fitted up for the purpose, and to take the boat along the banks of the river. At low water the keeper lets out the ducks, which find abundance of food in the multitudinous creatures that swarm in the mud, and when he thinks fit, he recalls them by a signal. As soon as they hear the signal, they hurry to the boat with an alacrity that seems rather ludicrous, unless the spectator knows that the last duck always gets a sharp blow from a switch.

The characteristic thrift of the Chinese is well shown in their various agricultural operations, which are marvellously successful, not only on account of the real skill and knowledge possessed by the Chinese, but by reason of the systematic and ceaseless labor bestowed upon the various crops. Not a weed is allowed to absorb the nutriment which ought to go to the rice, and between the rows of plants the laborer creeps on his hands and knees, searching for every weed, and working with his fingers the earth round every root. Taken alone, this is hard and disagreeable work, but, as the rice is planted in mud, as sharp stones are often hidden under the mud, and as leeches abound in it, the hardships of a rice-weeder’s life may be conceived.

The water which is so necessary for the crop is mostly supplied by mechanical means. If the agriculturist is fortunate enough to have land near the river or canal, his task is comparatively easy. He has only to erect a certain number of water-engines. These are almost all on the same principle,—i. e. an endless chain passing over two wheels, and drawing the water through an inclined trough. The wheels are generally worked by men, who turn them with their feet, supporting themselves on a horizontal bamboo. A larger and more complicated apparatus is worked by a buffalo.

At the smaller wheels all labor, as Mr. Milne observes: “In working them the energies of every household appeared taxed to the utmost vigor, as if each individual felt convinced of the necessity of his personal aid in securing a good and plentiful crop. I saw both young and old leaning on the same frame, treading the same wheel, and humming together their rustic song as they trod. Boys six years of age kept the step very well with men of fifty, and if too small to mount the wheel, they were placed on the ground to work the paddles with their little hands; and women, too, whose tiny and compressed feet disable them from treading the mill, stood at the feet of the men, keeping time with their hands.... None were indolent. There was no cessation, nor was there exemption from labor; and, while they fought among the thorns and thistles with which the ground had been cursed, and with the sweat of the brow under a blazing sun sowed, weeded, and watered the earth, no murmurs were heard, save the undulating sound of the husbandman’s song as it waved over the field.” Those women who are fortunate enough to possess feet of the natural size work as hard in the field as the men do, and are then almost as scantily attired, a wide and short pair of trousers, and a wide hat to shelter them from the sun, being all the clothing they care for.

Though the earth be poor, the Chinese agriculturist forces it to bear, for every substance which can serve as manure is carefully saved for that purpose. Not only do the Chinese dispose of all the refuse of their houses and streets in the fields, but, as we have seen, even the little scraps of hair that are shaved from the head are saved and used as manure. Indeed, it is only by means of this exceeding economy that the inhabitants of so densely populated a country can sustain life.

Our concluding notes on Chinese life must be few and short.

According to their own ideas, they are as much adepts in music as in the other arts and sciences, which, as they believe, have placed them at the very summit of humanity. They have a tolerable variety of musical instruments, the most common of which is the San-hien, a sort of three-stringed guitar, with a very long neck and a very little cylindrical body. The strings are of silk, and are struck with a thin slip of bamboo at the end of the finger. Then, as a type of stringed instruments played with a bow, may be mentioned the Urh-heen, or two-stringed fiddles, the sounds of which are generally very disagreeable,—that is, when produced for Chinese ears; but when the player desires to imitate the characteristics of European music, he can do so very perfectly, as is shown by Mr. Fleming:—

“In one of the most thronged streets I was, on one afternoon, elbowing my way along, exploring the ‘Heavenly Ford,’ when the sound of a violin playing a well-known waltz fixed my attention in a bylane; and there, instead of a hairy Briton flourishing a bow over a Cremona, was a blind beggar eliciting those pleasant notes with as great precision and tone from the rude and weighty mallet-shaped urh-heen, as if he had been all his public life first violin at the opera.”

The same traveller remarks of the vocal music of the Chinese, that “a Chinaman rehearsing a song looks and gives utterance to such goat-like bleats, that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that he is laboring under a violent attack of chronic whooping-cough, combined with intermittent seizures of hiccough,—the ‘dying falls’ of the inhuman falsetto at the end of each verse finishing in the most confounding hysterical perturbations of the vocal chords.”

There are several Chinese wind instruments. For instance, there is a clarionet, called Shu-teh, an instrument with a very loud and piercing note, and a peculiar “mouth-organ,” in which are a number of pipes. One of these instruments, drawn from a specimen in my collection, is shown on page 1445. It contains sixteen pipes, of different lengths, arranged in pairs. Some of the pipes, however, are “dummies,” and are only inserted to give the instrument an appearance of regularity. The length of the pipes has nothing to do with the pitch of the note, as they speak by means of brass vibrators inserted into the lower end, exactly like those of harmoniums. The pipes are bound together by means of a horn band that passes around them. When it is used, the player blows into the projecting mouthpiece, and with his fingers stops or opens the apertures in the pipes. The tone of this instrument is not pleasing to European ears.

Strange as Chinese music seems to us, and unpleasant as are the odd and unexpected intervals of their melodies, the art is evidently cultivated among the people, and there is scarcely a house without its musical instrument of some kind. In the evening, according to Mr. Fleming, “in passing through the narrow streets, one is sure to hear from the dimly lighted houses the squealing, incoherent, and distorted vibrations tumbling out on the night air with a spasmodic reality and a foreignness of style that at once remind the listener of the outlandish country he is in.” The preference of the Chinese for the strange, wild, abrupt intervals of their own music is not, as the reader may see, merely occasioned by ignorance of a more perfect scale, but is the result of deliberate choice on their part. They have no objection to European music. On the contrary, they are pleased to express their approbation of it, but with the proviso that it is decidedly inferior to their own.

From Music we turn to Art. In their own line of art the Chinese are unsurpassed, not to say inimitable. Ignorant of perspective as they may be, there is a quaint force and vigor about their lines that is worthy of all praise, while their rich softness of color can scarcely be equalled. From time immemorial they have been acquainted with the art of color printing from wooden blocks, and some of their oldest examples of color printing are so full of life and spirit, despite their exaggeration of gesture, and their almost ludicrous perspective, that the best English artists have admired them sincerely.

Of their porcelain, in which they simply stand alone, it is impossible to treat fully in such a work as this, as the subject would demand a volume to itself. Their carved work in ivory is familiarly known throughout the greater part of the civilized world. In many of these carvings the object of the artist seems to have been, not to develop any beauties of form, but to show his power of achieving seeming impossibilities. Among the best-known forms of Chinese carving may be reckoned the sets of concentric balls, which are cut out of solid ivory, or at least are said to be so made.

There is quite a controversy about the mode of cutting these balls, and even those who have spent much time in China, and are thoroughly acquainted with the arts and manufactures of the country, disagree on this subject, some saying that the balls are really cut from solid ivory, and others that each ball is made of two separate portions, which are joined very artificially by cement, and can be separated by steeping in boiling water. Of the two explanations I am rather inclined to believe the former, as none of those who say that the balls can be separated seem to have tried the experiment for themselves. The mode of cutting these curious specimens of art is said to be by boring conical holes from the circumference of the ball to its centre with a spherical piece of ivory, and then detaching each ball in succession with curved tools.

The jade carving of China is also celebrated. This material is remarkable for the beautifully soft polish which can be given to it, and, as it is a rare mineral and exceedingly hard, coming next in that respect to the ruby, articles made of jade are valued very highly by the Chinese. In the accompanying illustration are shown a number of jade carvings belonging to Sir Hope Grant, who kindly allowed me to have them engraved for this work. The bowl in the front is carved in imitation of a water-lily, the handle being formed from the flower-stem. The ring which hangs from the handle is cut from the same piece of jade. Just behind it is a jar of the same material, which is a wonderful specimen of carving, and admirably shows the patient industry of the Chinese worker. The second small bowl in the front, and the jar behind it, are also of jade.

The elegant jar which occupies the centre of the group is a splendid specimen of enamel, and beside it is a large piece of lapis lazuli, on which is engraved a poem written by the emperor himself.

The celebrated Summer Palace or Yuenming-yuen, which was sacked and burned by the English and French forces, was filled with splendid specimens of jade carving, some of which are shown in the preceding illustration. There are three kinds of jade, the cream-colored, the clear white, and the bright green. This last is the most esteemed, and is so valuable that a single bead, not so large as a boy’s playing marble, is worth a pound, or even more. Some necklaces made of these beads were sold after the destruction of the Summer Palace, and though they only contained about a hundred and fifty beads, a hundred and twenty pounds were given for them, the Chinese commissioners thinking that they were sold at a very cheap rate. The Chinese name for this jade is “feh-tsui.”

One of the most remarkable instances of Chinese art is the magic mirror. This article is a circular plate of metal rather more than a quarter of an inch thick, having its face smooth and highly polished, and its back dark and ornamented with various patterns, among which four Chinese characters are conspicuous. These characters are in honor of literature, and seem to be generally employed for the decoration of these mirrors.

When used simply for the purpose of reflecting the face, the mirrors present nothing worthy of notice, but when they are held to the sun, and the beams thrown upon a white surface, the whole of the characters on the back are shown in the reflection. The mirror will even show its powers when used with a lamp, but the sun is required to bring out the characters clearly. A small but excellent specimen of this mirror was presented to me by Dr. Flaxman Spurrell, and always excites great admiration wherever it is shown. Not the least trace of any figure is to be found in the face of the mirror, and the higher the polish given to the face, the clearer is the representation of the figures on the back.

Several theories have been promulgated respecting the mode of making these extraordinary mirrors, the most probable one being that the characters and patterns on the back are made of a harder and more condensed metal than that of the rest of the mirror, and that, when a high polish is given to the face, the difference of the metal is not perceptible, except by the mode in which it reflects light.

There is much to say respecting the customs of the Chinese. The small space, however, which remains will not permit us to treat fully of such wide subjects as religion, marriage, and disposal of the dead, and that they should be cursorily treated is impossible. We will therefore conclude with one of the most pleasing traits in the Chinese character, namely, the respect paid to old age.

According to Mr. Milne, “The sacred regard which Chinese pay to the claims of kindred secures to the patriarchs of respectable families ample support in the advanced and helpless stage of their pilgrimage; and charity often relieves poor septuagenarians whose relations may be unable to supply them with comforts or necessaries at their mature age. In China one’s feelings are not harrowed with the sad spectacle of an aged parent discarded by his children, and left to perish, unattended and unnursed, under a scorching sun, or on the banks of a rolling river. But you will see the tottering senior, man or woman, who has not the means to hire a sedan, led through the alleys and streets by a son or a grandchild, commanding the spontaneous respect of each passer-by, the homage of every junior.

“The deference of the polloi to the extreme sections of old age is manifest likewise from the tablets and monuments you may any day stumble upon, that have been erected by public subscription to the memory of octogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians. Nor is the government backward in encouraging this, but the reverse. Hence I have often seen very aged men and women in the streets, arrayed in yellow, i. e. imperial, robes, the gift of the emperor, in mark of honor, and out of respect to their gray hairs.” The reader will remember that an honorary degree is given to competitors who have reached an advanced age.

On one occasion, the emperor called together about four thousand old men at his palace, entertained them with a banquet, at which they were served by his own children and grandchildren, presented each of them with money and a yellow robe, and conferred upon the oldest of the assembly, a man aged one hundred and eleven years, the rank and dress of a mandarin.

Family festivals are held, something like the silver and golden wedding of the Germans, to celebrate each decade of life; and so important do the Chinese consider these festivals that they are often held by children even after the death of their parents, the only difference being that they have somewhat of a funeral cast, white, the color of mourning, being substituted for red, the color of joy. On those occasions the children offer gifts, and no present is thought to be more grateful to the recipient than a very handsome coffin. All Chinese who can afford it purchase during their lifetime a coffin as handsome as their means will permit, and so, should they not have been able to purchase this their last resting-place, their children think themselves honored by taking the purchase into their own hands. These coffins are nearly square, are made of immense thickness, and are so carefully cemented that the body may be kept in them without needing burial.

Filial respect is inculcated into the Chinese with their earliest breath, and their youthful minds are filled with legends of pious children. For example: Wu Mang was the son of parents who were too poor to possess mosquito curtains. So at night Wu Mang used to allow the mosquitoes to feed upon him, hoping that they would prefer a young boy to aged people. Wang Liang lost his mother, and had a step-mother who disliked him. Still he behaved to her as though she had been his own mother, and once, when she wished for some fresh fish and the river was frozen, Wang Liang went to the river, took off his clothes, and lay on the ice, hoping to melt it. Suddenly, in reward for his filial conduct, the ice opened, and out leaped two fine carp, which he took to his step-mother. Again, Lae, when he was seventy years of age, dressed and behaved like a child, in order that his parents should not be troubled, when looking at him, with the idea of their own age.

In every town or village, the oldest persons are treated with the greatest consideration, not on account of their rank or wealth, but of their age. Every one gives way to them, they have the best places in the theatres, are brought forward at every public spectacle, and are indulged in every possible way. Such has been the custom from time immemorial in this great nation, which was civilized when the inhabitants of England were naked savages. The oldest civilized nation in the world, they have honored their fathers and their mothers, and their days have been long in the land.