The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-09-16
IN FAR AWAY CATHAY.
The Only Permanent Things In China
Are Graves.

A Funerals Right Of Way-The Side of
aHouse Torn Away to Let Corpse
Be Carried on the Same Path That
His Ancestors Had Been-Uncannv
Burial Music.
A curious feature among many curious
features of the Chinese civilization is that
its antiquities consist chiefly Of graves.
Unlike all other nations of great age it
has no ruins, and no monuments which
pelong to its youth or even its manhood
The great wall is almost modern work
and the palaces of the great capital, Nan
king, are not as old as those of the Italian
cities.
Chinaman builds his tomb TO last
through eternity, but builds his house to
blow down in the first storm or to wash
away in the first rain. A mansion is sell
dom repaired, and never restored, 1t
shares the same fate as the hovel of the
coOlie and the hut of the savage. The
grave, on the other hand, is cleaned and
repaired every year and restored with
great regularity and thoroughness.
1t NAV sound paradoxical, but the grave
is the chief feature of Chinese life The
ages have built up around it an invisible
structure of legend, tradition, love and
worship, until it overtowers any and
everything else in the far east 1t is al
most impossible for an American to under
stand the attitude of the Chinese mind on
this subject.
John Chinaman is taught TO reverence
the tablets Of bis ancestors, the same as
Christians are taught to reverence saints.
in the beginning of his religious education
he learns that The next life is more i'm
portant than this, grander, wider and
more beautiful; that the human soul is
separable into distinct elements each of
which is an active, influential. self
conscious and intelligent individu-
atty; that one of these ele-
ments stays in or around a grave after
burial and remains there for generations
and centuries; that it takes notice of all
that goes on in mortal life, rewarding
good deeds, Furnishing evil deeds, bestow-
ing pleasure and indicJing pain the same
as If il were person in the body; that an
other element remains in the neigh Dor
hood of the ancestral tablets, behaving
the same as the one at the grave, and that
a third and a fourth element may and
often does attend the living through life
Very early in life John Chinaman buys
himself nice coffin, a roomy comfortable
affair in which he can sleep the last sleep
without chatting his knees and elbows. If
he has ever done anything worthy of men
ton he makes careful arrangements to
have il inscribed on the ancestral tablets
in his own family hall, and the temple of
his family and of his olan so that future
generations may render him reverence
and so enliven the monoIony of his spir-
itual existence. But in any and every
case he picks out good grave, pre-empts
1t under the Chinese law and has it made
ready for his reception.
This is very arduous and complicated
proceeding. 1t is about as bad in China
as chancery suit in New Jersey, and
like the latter, it has to be conducted by
one or more professionals of the highest
standard. These experts are known as
grave tel1ers," also astrologers
After this worthy Unsolicited a grave
all goes well until marriage when an
other grave must be picked out for the
wife. This goes so far that many devout
Celestials Will have a separate place
picked out for every wife, child and de-
pendent relative within his pates.-a
large-sized cemetery in posse
Finally Azrael does appear, and one of
the graves comes to be occupied The
coffin is bought from the family under
taker. II is curious looking affair, and
on its face has some historic meaning
that is long since forgotten. At first
sight it looks like the section of the
trunk of great tree that has been
stripped from its boughs and bark and
neatly cleaned. Closer inspection shows
that it is a box whose three long sides and
cover have been sawn from the section
of trunk as described, and which
are held firmly together by end pieces
made from the same wood. The poorest
quality consists of thin boards, worm
eaten and ugly; the handsomest have
been taken from great monarchs of the
forest three, four, and even five feet in
diameter. Then, curious to relate, the
entire interior is lined with cheuam,
which is cement made from fine sand,
lime and calcined cement rock. 1t is al
most white in color and after application
IS polished while it is setting. When well
done the interior of the coffin looks as if
II were composed of fine porcelain The
poorer styles of collins are simply white
washed on the inside Sometimes, though
rarely, the outside is decorated in
gold or pale coloring When done it is
only by great merchants or mandarins
The simple unadorned trunk is the rule
to-day, as it was thousands of years ago
Where the form came from is unknown,
but there are many stories and folk tales
TO explain its origin. One is that the Chi
nese once lived in the interior of great
trees in the far west of the empire, and
that when the head of the family died the
body was left in the old home. The fam
lly moved away to some new tree and the
door of the old one was fastened up for
ever
When the coffin arrives small fires are
quilt, IN which are consumed all sorts of
symbolical objects
in Canton and Annoy, which are famous
Tor this kind of work, they manufacture
three and four storied houses filled with
welldressed paper figures, furnished
with furniture in gold and silver tinsel,
decorated with flowers and trees made
out of colored tissues and epitomizing the
highest wealth and luxury. All these are
put IN the fires, and in a moment reduced
TO ashes The imaginative Chinese be-
heyes that what is done by him symbol
cally in actual life is done actually in the
spiritual existence; that the paper money
which burns is transubstantiated, il
may use the term, into celestial wealth
mat the paper palace when consumed
gives TO the dead man a real palace in a
lie TO come; the make-believe animals be-
come herds and focks on the heavenly
plains, and the tiny figures are metamor-
pnosed into servants. employees, friends
ana companions.
After the body has lain in state the
time allowed by custom or by law the
priest appears upon the scene with his
Paraphernalia and retinue. There is a
mule statute sitting in chair gorgeously