patrician the eating of gold-leaf — a very uneasy
and lingering mode of dying. It is, however,
considered very improper to interrupt family
enjoyments or amusements by an act of self-
destruction, and we remember one of our
servants reporting an event in his family —his wife
had hanged herself, and, what was exceedingly
improper, she bad done it on a day on which
he was particularly busy.

Suicides in China are often characteristically
singular. They are not unfrequently committed
for the purpose of revenge, and a life is willingly
sacrificed in order to bring punishment on
those who may be compromised or injured by
the death of the self-destroyer. There are many
cases in which, bv the laws of China, persons
are made responsible for the acts of others, and
subjected to death punishments, for deeds with
which they have bad nothing to do. We know
of a case in which a very beautiful girl who had
been purchased for a large sum of money by a
rich merchant, determined to avenge a supposed
slight by immolating herself, with the double
purpose of inflicting on him the pecuniary loss
of her purchased value, and of denouncing him
to the authorities as responsible for her death.
She dressed herself in her gayest garments,
took opium, and summoned her friends and
relations to witness her decease. It is not
unusual for Chinamen who come from the
interior, having failed to realise their expectations
of success in commercial or literary speculations,
afraid of encountering the reproaches of
their friends and relations should they return
home, to hang or drown themselves amidst the
persons or in the places which have been
associated with their disappointments. It is rare that
any house in which such an event occurs escapes
the visitation of the low officials, who, as well as
their superordinates, seldom lose the opportunity
of " squeezing" the inhabitants, the popular term
for exacting the payment of " hush-money."

There are many Chinese books giving the
history and describing the machinery of the
national drama. Of these Morrison, in his
Dictionary, gives a curious synopsis. Some
authorities say that Suy the emperor — for the
Chinese attribute everything that is influential
or important to an imperial source — invented the
drama A.D. 610, and called it Kang-keu-hi,
others report that the Emperor Yuen-tsung
originated the drama, and gave it the name of
Chuen-ki, in A.D. 740. Under another dynasty
it was called Hi-keuh, and under a third Yuen-
pun-tsa-keih. This power of creating new
names is one of the most curious attributes of
supreme authority. The Tae-pings, in the height
of their success, put forth a proclamation
ordering that characters bearing a certain meaning
should be replaced by others, but the edict
remained, as may well be supposed, altogether
without effect. So Louis le Grand, in the plenitude
of his power, did alter the gender of a
word, by calling for Mon Carosse; the noun up
to his days having been deemed feminine. In
the year 1120, the Emperor Hwuy-Tsung was
so amused by the costumes and the gesticulations
of some ambassadors who brought tribute
to his court, that he directed them to be
perpetuated on the stage. Under the present
dynasty, the characters applied to the drama
mean " The joy of peace and prosperity." The
great repertory of the Chinese drama belongs
to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It
is a collection of one hundred pieces, from
which the plays best known to Europeans
have been translated into English, French,
and German. In all these, the dialogues are
in prose, interspersed with songs or fragments
of poetry, the phraseology of wnich is often so
essentially and peculiarly Chinese, that it can
hardly be made intelligible to Europeans.
Poetry has seized and incorporated, in a
condensed language of its own, all the legends and
traditions of the empire, in tracing which to
their source a stranger is often utterly lost. The
characters are grouped under nine heads ; 1.
Principal male actors. 2. Secondary actors.
3. Courtesans, to whom the name of a female
libidinous monster is applied. 4. Foxes, i.e.
Officials. 5. Buffoons, obscene fellows, whose
faces are daubed with black or white paint. 6.
Paou — old women — the title of a dirty female
bird. 7. Naou, monkeys who are said to pick
vermin out of the heads of tigers, and to feed
upon their brains, i.e. procuresses. 8. Jokers,
called slippery spies ; and 9. Wit inspirers. The
preface gives details as to the proper subjects
of dramatic acts, among which are, Transformations
by gods and demons ; court ceremonials ;
portraitures of scholars and statesmen; hooting
down adulterers and exposing slanderers ; war-
scenes with swords and clubs; misfortunes of
exiled mandarins and orphan children ; winds,
flowers, snows, and moons, i.e. love pieces;
smoke, flowers, dirty faces, i.e. exhibitions of
low life ; deities and devils ad libitum. In
ancient times the great stage entrance was
called the Spirits' door.

Dramatic representations are popular in
China; but players in general occupy a low
social position, and are excluded from any of
the four grades into which respectable society
is divided — the sage, the agriculturist, the
soldier, and the mechanic. In the large cities
are theatres built for the accommodation of the
public, with a pit for the commonalty, who
stand; boxes for the quality, who sit; and a
stage with its appliances of scenery and mechanism,
for the actors. The entrance for the less
privileged orders is gratuitous, but something
is paid for the more elevated places. Strolling
players circulate over the country, and when by
public subscription a sufficient sum is raised to
defray the expenses of their visit and allow them
adequate recompense for their trouble, an extempore
theatre is erected—if no permanent edifice
exist—with incredible rapidity and marvellous
ingenuity. Bamboo pillars, bamboo rafters, bamboo
floors, are bound together with singular art, and
without the employment of a hammer or a nail,
and suddenly a light, but not inelegant structure
rises, almost as if by magic, from the ground.
Huge boxes of garments, weapons, musical