obstructive geomancer will reject site after site for the interment of
some deceased relative, or perhaps that the day fixed upon as a lucky
one for the ceremony of burial may be several months after death.
Meanwhile a fire breaks out in the house where the body lies in its
massive, air-tight coffin, and all is confusion and uproar. The first
thought is for the corpse; but who is to lift such a heavy weight and
carry it to a place of safety without the dreaded jolting, almost as
painful to the survivors as would be cremation itself? Such harrowing
thoughts are usually cut short by the entrance of six or eight sturdy
men from the nearest guild, who, armed with the necessary ropes and
poles, bear away the coffin through flame and smoke with the utmost
gentleness and care.




PAWNBROKERS

Few probably among our readers have had much experience on the subject
of the present sketch--a Chinese pawnshop. Indeed, for others than
students of the manners and customs of China, there is not much that
is attractive in these haunts of poverty and vice. The same mighty
misery, which is to be seen in England passing in and out of
mysterious-looking doors distinguished by a swinging sign of three
golden balls, is not wanting to the pawnshop in China, though the act
of pledging personal property in order to raise money is regarded more
in the light of a business transaction than it is with us, and less as
one which it is necessary to conceal from the eyes of the world at
large. Nothing is more common than for the owner of a large wardrobe
of furs to pawn them one and all at the beginning of summer and to