Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-11-24

tirely discards, for the time, all things Of q
red color, and he takes the red coloring on
of the furniture of his house. Red is the
color OF prosperity in China, it means
lucky, and the ordinary Chinese visiting
card is strip of red paper as long as Gov
ernment envelope. While in mourning he
prints his name on white visiting cards, and
he does this for three years. At the end OF
that time be puts on garments Of modlhed
color, and writes on his visiting cards the
word tam, which means my grief is not 50
bitter as before.
The Chinese, and in fact all nations Of
the Orient, are more rigid as to their terms
OF mourning than we are. The Chinaman
who would not put on mourning for his
father would be arrested, and in Korea
man is expected to clothe himself in yelloT
sackcloth and trot around the country under
hat as big as dishpan, holding fan be-
fore his face, for three years after the death
OF any near relative. During this time he
can do no business, cannot engage in mar
riage, nor attend any festivities. Cinnamon
do not 60 to theaters during their mourning
period, and the law, to a certain extent, reg
ulates the mourning customs of japan. Dur
ing mourning, the leading officials of many
OF the countries have the right to resign, and
not long ago Lii Hung Chang, the great
Nlceroy, asked to be excused from his du-
ties as Premier of the Chinese Empire in or
der that he might go off and mourn for his
mother.
MOURNING IN JAPAN.
When a King dies in Siam the whole
nation, men, women and children, are sup
posed to shave their heads, and Japanese
widow often keeps her head shaved after the
death of her husband. The Chinese neither
shave nor cut their hair during the first
period of mourning. If q man dies his
widow and children are supposed to sit on
the floor instead of chairs for the first seven
days, and at night they must sleep on mats
spread on the ground near the coffin, instead
Of in their beds. They are not supposed to
do any cooking in the house, and they rely
on the food sent in by the neighbors. They
attempt to take away every comfort from
themselves, and they turn their pictures
with their faces toward the wall, and cover
up all of the houses ornaments.
The heaviest wooden coffins used In the
world are those of the Chinese, and coffin
making is one of the leading industries of
every Chinese city. Collins cost all the way
from IS to 81, 900. and your rich mandarin
will have his burial casket laequered inside
and out, and his funeral will cost a small
fortune. If he is over 60 he will keep his
coffin on hand, SO as to have it ready in case
of his death, and if he has a dntiful son
this coffin may possibly be a birthday gilt
from the boy. Many an old Chinaman
keeps his coffin in his parlor, though he does
not sleep in it, as Sara Bernhardt is said to
sometimes do in hers. The wood Of
the Chinese coffin is from four TO six
inches thick, and coffin weighs hundreds
of pounds. 1t is usually carried on a sort Of
frame work Of poles to the grave, and it is
iod hryo han of
fessional mourners. The man is laid at
full length within it and a lot of stuff is
buried with it. Each of his nearest rela-
tives Is supposed to bring a silk coverlet to
put over the body, and dozen silk quilts
are sometimes packed in above the corpse.
The thing that the corpse liked most in life
is buried with him, and many Cinnamon
save the parings of their nails and the
combings of their hair in order that they
may be put at their feet when they lie in
their cofins. In the mouth of the body
piece of gold, silver or copper is placed. It
is dressed in silk and is often decked with
jewels. Grave robbing is so severely
punished in Japan that there is little danger
of the cofins being dug up.
A CHINESE DILEMMA.
In case the family is too poor to own a
burial mound or to stand the expenses of
the funeral the coffin is kept in the house
until they can raise enough money to put it
under the ground in good style. A tutor
employed at the American Legation in
Peking has had the coffin containing his
fathers body in his house for the last two
years, and he has not yet been able to raise
enough money to bury it. Before he picks
out burial spot he will, like all China
men, get fortune teller to choose a lucky
place for him, and he will go periodically
to the grave and burn some paper over it
and some suits of paper clothes to keep the
spirit of his father warm, and will place
some food before it that his father may have
a ghostly feast during the night.
japanese collins are often made of burnt
clay in the shape of large jars. The body is
ali doubled up when it is squeezed into the
coffin, and it is buried in sitting posture,
The collins of japanese babies are little pine
boxes, and in the case of the poorer
classes, it is not uncommon to pack them
full of lime in order that the bodies NAV
decay more quickly. Sometimes tubs of
pine, hooped with bamboo, are used for
cofins, and the cofins are broken with the
spade of the undertaken as he puts them in
the earth. The Burmese coffin is a fiimsy
affair, made of the lightest. wood nailed
roughly together. In the case of the richer
dead it is covered with gilt paper, and it is
carried to the grave with fantastic dances
and doleful music. The funeral ceremonies
are much the same as those of the Chinese.
and for seven days after the burial the
family sit upon the ground and sleep upon
mats. All over the East the same mortifca-
tion of the flesh is practiced by the relations
of the dead, and grief for departed friends
is fully as bitter in Asia as in the United
States. FRANK G. CARPENTER.