Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1858-04-01
The Chinese Feast of Lanterns.

| Al CQ6 COIllUlouceueuI vi Iuo SAihCoo
year, about the end of February, the peo-
pie hold their great holiday and festival of
the Feast of Lanterns. The courts of law
are closed, all business is stopped, and the
people do nothing but make and receive
presents, and give themselves up to rejoic-
ing. The smaller mandarins pay visits of
respect to their superiors, children to their
fathers, and servants to their masters; the
very poorest of the poor wear the best
dresses they can buy or borrow, and think
of nothing but visiting each other, perform
ing plays, telling stories, and feasting.
Every house in the city, and every boat
on the canals and rivers of their vast en-
pire, is hung about with hundreds of mill
ions of painted lanterns, and at night the
most costly and ingenious fire works are let
off for the amusement of the people; in
deed, the expenditure of time and money
is so great, and the mirtb, joy and pleasure
so general, that no great national festival
in the world can be compare with the
great festival of the Feast of Lanterns.
Of the origin of this festival the Chinese
tells several interesting stories, one of which
is that
''There was once great mandarian who
had a most beautiful daughter, and one
day, as she was walking by the side of a
river, she fell in and was drowned. The
afflicted father with his family and SER
wants ran to the river, and, that they might
be better able to find the body, caused a
great number of lanterns to have lights put
in them. All the inhabitants of the place
thronged after him with lighted torches,
and, although they could not find the body
the mandarian was so much pleased with
the anxiety of the people to help him, that
he ordered them to 60 the next year with
their lanterns, and make the same search,
and so on each year, until it became an es-
tablished CUSTOM"
Another story is
"That about three thousand years ago,
there lived en- Emperor of China named
Kio, who, although very clever, and great
hero, was given to pleasure and wickedness
of all kinds, and, moreover, so extrayagant
with the peoples money, that odt of a
mere whim, be built an immense tower of
diamonds and pearls, and all the most cost
ly gems he could buy or steal, and filled a
bath-large enough to hold three thousand
people-with the most expensive wine
Now, as some of his hest friends even
thought this was going little too far, they
tried to persuade him to become more
moderate; but he did not seem to care
about their advice, and moreover ordered
them all to be put to death, which of course
prevented people from being too free with
their advice for the future; after which he
became more extravagant in his wishes,
for, not contented with castle built of
precious stones instead of bricks, and gold
and silver instead of iron and wood, he
wanted to find out how to make life long
er-he, in fact, wanted to cut off Deaths
head. To do this he made arrangements
to forget that there were any changes of
season, either of years, days, or nights, and
commenced by building palace in which
the light of day should never be seen; and,
instead of the sun, he ordered. as an i'm
provement, vast number of lanterns to
be hung up and kept lighted night and day.
ale then shut himself up with his queen
and remained there till the people could
not bear the hardships which they had to
undergo in consequence of kio's extrava-
gance, and determined to let little day
light into the palace, and SO stormed and
pulled it down, sending Kio to get his liv-
ing by begging. As Kio had not been
brought up to that line Of business, he soon
died of starvation; and to preserve the
memory of the tyrant's defeat and death,
and as slight hint to succeeding emperors
the people hung out lanterns, in every one
of their cities every year on the same day