are a source of perpetual terror to the whole family, and a serious tax on the common resources. [Footnote:  “Chinese Characteristics,” by Arthur H. Smith, p. 200.]

Religious rites and ceremonies form a conspicuous part in the New Year’s celebration.  At this time the “Kitchen God,” according to current superstition, returns to heaven to render an account of the household’s behavior.  The wily Chinese, however, first rubs the lips of the departing deity with candy in order to “sweeten” his report of any evil which he may have witnessed during the year.

Usually all the members of the family gather before the ancestral tablets, or should these be lacking as among many of the laboring classes, a scroll with a part of the genealogy is displayed and the spirits of the departed are appeased and honored by the burning of incense and the mumbling of incantations.  While strict attention is paid to the religious observance to the dead, at New Year’s the most punctilious ceremony is rendered to the living.

After the family have paid their respects to one another the younger male members go from house to house “kowtowing” to the elders who are there to receive them.  The following days are devoted to visits to relatives living in the neighboring towns and villages, and this continues, an endless routine, until fourteen days later the Feast of the Lanterns puts an end to the “epoch of national leisure.”

The Chinese are inveterate gamblers and at New Year’s they turn feverishly to this form of amusement which is almost their only one.  But they also have to think seriously about paying their debts for it is absolutely necessary for all classes and conditions of men to meet their obligations at the end of the year.

Almost everyone owes money in China.  According to the clan system an individual having surplus cash is obliged to lend it (though at a high rate of interest) to any members of his family in need of help.  However, a Chinaman never pays cash unless absolutely obliged to and almost never settles a debt until he has been dunned repeatedly.

The activity displayed at New Year’s is ludicrous.

Each separate individual [says Dr. Smith] is engaged in the task of trying to chase down the men who owe money to him, and compel them to pay up, and at the same time in trying to avoid the persons who are struggling to track him down and corkscrew from him the amount of his indebtedness to them!  The dodges and subterfuges to which each is obliged to resort, increase in complexity and number with the advance of the season, until at the close of the month, the national activity is at fever heat.  For if a debt is not secured then, it will go over till a new year, and no one knows what will be the status of a claim which has actually contrived to cheat the annual Day of Judgment.  In spite of the excellent Chinese habit of making the close of a year a grand clearing-house for