The last day of the old year is an anxious time to all debtors and creditors, for it is the great pay-day, and those who cannot pay are abused and insulted, and often have the furniture of their house all smashed to pieces by their desperate creditors.

On the 20th of the twelfth moon, by an order from court, all the seals of office, throughout the empire, are locked up, and not opened till the 20th of the first moon.  By this arrangement there are thirty days of rest from the ordinary official business of government.  They attend, however, to extraordinary cases.

During the last few days of the old year, the people perform various domestic rites.  On one evening they sweep clean the furnace and the hearth, and worship the god of their domestic fires.

On new-year’s eve, they perfume hot water with the leaves of Wongpe and Pumelo trees, and bathe in it.  At midnight they arise and dress in the best clothes and caps they can procure; then towards heaven kneel down, and perform the great imperial ceremony of knocking the forehead on the ground thrice three times.  Next they illuminate as splendidly as they can, and pray for felicity towards some domestic idol.  Then they visit all the gods in the various surrounding temples, burn candles, incense, gilt paper, make bows, and prostrate pray.

These services to the gods being finished, they sally forth about daylight in all directions, to visit friends and neighbours, leaving a red paper card at each house.  Some stay at home to receive visitors.  In the house, sons and daughters, servants and slaves, all dress, and appear before the heads of the family, to congratulate them on the new year.

After new year’s day, drinking and carousing, visiting and feasting, idleness and dissipation, continue for weeks.  All shops are shut, and workmen idle, for a longer or shorter period, according to the necessities, or the habits, of the several parties.  It is, in Canton, generally a month before the business of life returns to its ordinary channel.

MEETING THE SPRING.

February 4, is a great holiday throughout the empire.  It is called Yingchun, that is, meeting the spring, to-morrow, when the sun enters the 15 deg. of Aquarius, being considered the commencement of the spring season.  It is a sort of Lord Mayor’s day.  The chief magistrate of the district goes forth in great pomp, carried on men’s shoulders, in an open chair, with gongs beating, music playing, and nymphs and satyrs seated among artificial rocks and trees, carried in procession.

He goes to the general parade-ground, on the east side of Canton, on the following day, being Lapchun, the first day of spring, in a similar style.  There a buffalo, with an agricultural god made of clay, having been paraded through the streets, and pelted by the populace, to impel its labours, is placed on the ground, in solemn state, when this official priest of spring gives it a few strokes with a whip, and leaves it to the populace, who pelt it with stones till it is broken to pieces; and so the foolish ceremony terminates.  The due observance of this ancient usage is supposed to contribute greatly to an abundant year.