Love, when successful is well enough, and perhaps it has treasures of its own to compensate for its inconveniences; but a more miserable situation than that of an unhappy individual before the altar, it is not in the heart of man to conceive.  First of all, you are marched with a solitary male companion up the long aisle, which on this occasion appears absolutely interminable; then you meet your future partner dressed out in satin and white ribbons, whom you are sure to meet in gingham gowns or calico prints, every morning of your life ever after.  There she is, supported by her old father, decked out in his old-fashioned brown coat, with a wig of the same colour, beautifully relieving the burning redness of his huge projecting ears; and the mother, puffed up like an overgrown bolster, encouraging the trembling girl, and joining her maiden aunts of full fifty years, in telling her to take courage, for it is what they must all come to.  Bride’s-maids and mutual friends make up the company; and there, standing out before this assemblage, you assent to everything the curate, or, if you are rich enough, the rector, or even the dean, may say, shewing your knock-knees in the naked deformity of white kerseymeres, to an admiring bevy of the servants of both families, laughing and tittering from the squire’s pew in the gallery.  Then the parting!—­The mother’s injunctions to the juvenile bride to guard herself from the cold, and to write within the week.  The maiden aunts’ inquiries, of, “My dear, have you forgot nothing?”—­the shaking of hands, the wiping and winking of eyes!  By Hercules!—­there is but one situation more unpleasant in this world, and that is, bidding adieu to your friends, the ordinary and jailor, preparatory to swinging from the end of a halter out of it.  The lady all this time seems not half so awkward.  She has her gown to keep from creasing, her vinaigrette to play with; besides, that all her nervousness is interesting and feminine, and is laid to the score of delicacy and reserve.

Blackwood’s Magazine.

* * * * *

MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

CURIOUS CHINESE CUSTOMS.

(From the “Canton Register,” the first English Newspaper published in China.)

BURIAL.

No corpse is allowed to enter the gates of Pekin without an imperial order; because, it is said, a rebel entered in a coffin during the reign of Kienlung.  However, even at Canton, and in all other cities of the empire, no corpse is permitted to enter the southern gate, because the Emperor of China gets on his throne with his face towards the south.

THE NEW YEAR.

The Chinese make their new year commence on the new moon, nearest to the time when the sun’s place is in the 15th degree of Aquarius.  It is the greatest festival observed in the empire.  Both the government and the people, rich and poor, take a longer or shorter respite from their cares and their labours at the new year.