of exposing themselves to the enemy.  The people are very fond of fireworks, but prefer to have them in the daytime.  Ladies’ ride in wheelbarrows, and cows are driven in carriages.  While in Europe the feet are put in the stocks, in China the stocks are hung round the neck.  In China the family name comes first, and the personal name afterward.  Instead of saying Benjamin Franklin or Walter Scott they would say Franklin Benjamin, Scott Walter.  Thus the Chinese name of Confucius, Kung-fu-tsee, means the Holy Master Kung;—­Kung is the family name.  In the recent wars with the English the mandarins or soldiers would sometimes run away, and then commit suicide to avoid punishment.  In getting on a horse, the Chinese mount on the right side.  Their old men fly kites, while the little boys look on.  The left hand is the seat of honor, and to keep on your hat is a sign of respect.  Visiting cards are painted red, and are four feet long.  In the opinion of the Chinese, the seat of the understanding is the stomach.  They have villages which contain a million of inhabitants.  Their boats are drawn by men, but their carriages are moved by sails.  A married woman while young and pretty is a slave, but when she becomes old and withered is the most powerful, respected, and beloved person in the family.  The emperor is regarded with the most profound reverence, but the empress mother is a greater person than he.  When a man furnishes his house, instead of laying stress, as we do, on rosewood pianos and carved mahogany, his first ambition is for a handsome camphor-wood coffin, which he keeps in the best place in his room.  The interest of money is thirty-six per cent, which, to be sure, we also give in hard times to stave off a stoppage, while with them it is the legal rate.  We once heard a bad dinner described thus:  “The meat was cold, the wine was hot, and everything was sour but the vinegar.”  This would not so much displease the Chinese, who carefully warm their wine, while we ice ours.  They understand good living, however, very well, are great epicures, and somewhat gourmands, for, after dining on thirty dishes, they will sometimes eat a duck by way of a finish.  They toss their meat into their mouths to a tune, every man keeping time with his chop-sticks, while we, on the contrary, make anything but harmony with the clatter of our knives and forks.  A Chinaman will not drink a drop of milk, but he will devour birds’-nests, snails, and the fins of sharks with a great relish.  Our mourning color is black and theirs is white; they mourn for their parents three years, we a much shorter time.  The principal room in their houses is called “the hall of ancestors,” the pictures or tablets of whom, set up against the wall, are worshipped by them; we, on the other hand, are only too apt to send our grandfather’s portrait to the garret.[10]

Sec. 2.  Chinese Government based on Education.  Civil-Service Examinations.