Morning journal and courier., 1886-05-14

The Marriageable Chinese Emperor Co Inspect the Daughters of the King
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Inspect the Daughters of the King dom.
 [Pekin Correspondence of the London Times Much interest is vakened in the coming events in the Imperial family. The Emper- or is approaching maturity, being now six teen. His guardians have been letting him out gradually, and during the present win ter he has enjoyed much recreation on the ice on the lakes which form the most beau tiful features of the palace grounds. Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Regent has al so spent much of her time out-of doors. But the time has now arrived to prepare for the marriage of the young Emperor, and allMan- chu families above certain rank having daughters between the ages of twelve and eighteen must bring them to the palace for inspection by the officials charged with the duty of choosing consort for the sovereign. These pilgri inns of love have in many cases to perform long and arduous journeys from their homes, and it would not be difficult to construct 8 romance ontof the incidents of such pilgrimages, the hope which sings in the maiden's bosom each fresh morning when she resumes her journey, the disgust and despair which serve her for pillows each night as she bemoans her aching limbs in dismal, dust -begrirned roadside inn, with not even Turkish bath on the premises The girls are said not to be detained long in suspense-the worst part of hanging, accord ing to the Hibernian saying-but the rejected ones arc promptly restored to their parents and guardians, and return to their homes perhaps sadder, if wiser, but probably in most cases thanking their divinites that the ordeal is over and that the interdict against their marriage is at length removed. For year at least before the Empress is chosen no Manchu girl within the prescribed linn it's of age and of eligible rank is allowed to marry.
 Another pilgrimage shortly to be under taken attracts great attention, for it, too, marks an epoch and may have wider reaching practical consequences. The Empress Regent, the father of the Emperor, with all the court, will leave the capital on the 1st of April to visit the tomb of the late Empress Dowager, who known as the Eastern Empress, the childless widow of Hien- flung.
 The annual festival or anniversary of ''Tsing Ming" falls this year on the 9th of April by our calendar, on which day the whole people of China visit the graves of their families. This is called, in the offen- sive parlance of the missionaries, the 'Ewor- ship of ancestors" :" and is held by them as a horrible species of idolatry, which they think themselves commissioned to denounce with all the terrors in the biblical repertoire Pure nonsense. Filial piety or ancestral worship-it is the same thing-is the heal thiest moral sentiment the Chinese have got, and the missionaries, if they knew their bus mess. would build on that foundation instead of breaking their heads against it. But, meritorious or not, here the great Empe- TOT and the court showing the example to all the people of paying respect to the memory of the departed. And on the very same day, when the whole nation is engaged in the like service, the greatest personages of the empire will prostrate themselves before the graves of their sainted predecessors.