M. de la Tourelle, and two or three others,
whom I had known at Les Rochers.

After that conviction Dr. Voss tried to
persuade me to return to more natural mode of
life, and to go out more. But although I sometimes
complied with his wish, yet the old terror
was ever strong upon me, and he, seeing what
an effort it was, gave up urging me at last.

You know all the rest. How we both mourned
bitterly the loss of that dear husband and father
—for such I will call him ever— and as such
you most consider him, my child, after this one
revelation is over.

Why has it been made, you ask. For this
reason, my child. The lover, whom you have
only known as M. Lebrun, a French artist, told
me but yesterday his real name, dropped because
the blood-thirsty republicans might consider it
as too aristocratic. It is Maurice de Poissy.

CHINAMEN'S DINNERS.

EVERYBODY has heard that the Chinaman eats
cats and dogs and rats and mice. Everybody
might as well be told that the Chinese eat their
women, because the rebels in Nanking ate their
wives when pressed by famine. As to dog, it is
true that hams made in the province of Shantung,
and nowhere else, from dogs of a certain breed,
reared and fattened for the purpose, are
considered by the Chinese a great delicacy, but they
are too delicious to be easily got. The Chinese,
in fact, eat dogs just as much as the French eat
frogs.

I have been long enough resident in China to
respect the Chinese genius for cookery. Although
a Chinaman of the upper class does eat many
things that are not seen on an English table, I
dare boldly question whether the difference does
not prove the superiority of the Chinaman's
taste; for I have partaken of many a strange dish
prepared for Chinese palates far surpassing, in
delicacy of flavour, anything I ever ate in
Europe.

The Chinese poor, on the other hand, live very
simply. Almost their only food is rice, which,
except on high days and holidays, is served with
very little addition in the way of "relish," a few
vegetables, or at most a little bit of fish, being
the only things added to help it down. The
little bit of fish is such a truly little bit, that it
bears to the rice on which it lies the proportion
of a tiny jewel to the coronet of which it is the
pride. The hardy Chinaman sups away bravely
at the rice below it, feasting his eyes meanwhile
on the precious morsel, till at last, his hunger
being somewhat appeased, the relish is brought
in (like the alderman's thimbleful of brandy
before pudding) to enable him to finish his meal
with a treat.

Yet the amount of work done on this spare
diet is great. A single man's entire expenses, when
living as above described, are eight or nine pounds
a year, including rent, clothing, and luxuries.
This sum will keep a man of the lowest respectable
class of a hard-working industrious population,
without, forbidding him such luxuries as a
drink of wine at feast times, and an
occasional spread of fruits and sweetmeats. But
he must avoid gambling, drinking, or
opium-smoking vices which are too common among
town coolies, but do not prevail much among
the peasantry. The addition of another four or
five pounds a year would make this income
large enough to support a wife and family.
Some are obliged to be content with a cheap sort
of potato.

The lowest grades of mandarins, official assistants,
and poor scholars or literati, of course live
better; but not much. The poor scholar is a
social chrysalis, who only waits until the genial
beams of government favour shall enable him
to burst into the gorgeous mandarin. In his
elementary state be is often hard pushed to
find rice for his family, and sets up as doctor,
teacher of the mandarin dialect, schoolmaster,
or the like, but will on no consideration stain
his fingers with trade, or cut his nails and
work for his living. People of this sort abound
in all the large towns; much more, just now,
than formerly, as the reduced state of the
exchequer has latterly induced the government to
offer a great number of mandarin posts for sale.
Thus the poor men who have worked and studied
to qualify themselves for appointments, are passed
over, and men of the trading class, which of all
others the literati affect to despise, are
promoted in their stead. The highest officer at
Amoy at this moment was formerly a money
counter in a foreign hong in Canton.

The style of table kept by men of the middle
class, merchants, shopkeepers, and mandarins,
the bulk of whose incomes ranges from thirty or
fifty to a hundred pounds a year, differs from
that of the lower classes, chiefly in the use of
better wines; now and then, also, they give an
expensive dinner. But they have not much to
spend in costly delicacies, as they are obliged
to keep up appearances in dress, and are,
more-over, burdened with idle small-footed wives and
children. Frequently, too, they indulge in opium
smoking, and other expensive vices. The
merchants again, although their incomes are far
larger than those mentioned above, are afraid to
let their wealth be seen, lest it should excite the
cupidity of mandarins. They live, therefore, in
comfortless rooms behind their shops, their only
pleasure seeming to consist in hoarding what
they dare not spend. Rice is the staple
article of food with all these Chinamen, as
with the coolies and farmers: the only difference
being, that they have their fish and .
tables in quantity enough to be served up on
separate dishes, and of much more expensive
kinds than those bought by the poorer men. A
choice addition consists of thin slices of pork fat,
rolled up, cut into lengths of about an inch, and
fried until most of the grease is drawn out, leaving
the rest crisp and brown and not unpalatable.
Bread is never eaten in the provinces south of
Shantung, its place being entirely taken by rice;
but there is a sort of dumpling made of flour,
sometimes plain and sometimes with mincemeat
or dried fruit in it. Small cakes are also made