The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-10-15

and takes great pride and comfort in pay
ing visits to his future resting place and
sitting on his own tombstone.
1t is singular to note with what GER
| tainty one who is Old or i'll will prepare
for his demise. Premonitions of coming
fate seem to enter into his soul, and he
sends word to his relatives and friends
that he is about to die-what day can they
come to his funeral? If he has not been
'forehanded' enough to secure his burial
outfit there is a great commotion among
the households till money is collected for
q coffin and also for feasting and music
Tor a funeral is a great social event
The evil spirits must be propitiated with
1000 and paper money, and a supply of
paper clothing and furniture must be burn
ed for the use of the departed spirit IN
the realm of shades. When he is assured
that his obsequies will be properly conduct
ed Cand seldom before) the patient calmly
surrenders to the inevitable. When a
man mas made up his mind to die Il is
not often that he RECEIVERS though it some
times happens that vigorous protest and
eXhortation on the part Of some infuen-
tal relative will avail and will induce him
TO delay shutting off this mortal coil
Vastly more shocking than the ubiqui-
touS grave is the unburied coffin. 1t is ev-
erywhere. Every village has its houses for
storing collins for which no suitable burial
place has been found, and whole hamlets
are given over TO this CHASTITY use If the
wooden house" is made of the proper kind
Of wood and wei sealed the results are
not so bad, but if it is a cheap article-woe
betide the passer-byi The entombment de-
pending on the good viii of the Wind-and-
Water Devil, Fong-Shui. and his favor
being closely intertwiued with that of the
priest who is employed to choose the site
II sometimes happens that the ancestral
remains occupy corner of the dwelling
house for fifty years before the two now
ers that be can agree upon proper rest
ing place. Even after the bones are laid
IN the ground it is by no means certain
that they are finally disposed Of; for If the
relatives have money the priest is apt 10
discover that the site is not a good one
or perhaps the Fong Shut has changed his
mind, and up comes the ancestor. If tie
coffin has decayed the fshless bones are
slowed in covered jar, and these fright
ful objects, awaiting refinement, dot the
country thicky.
That China is being changed finds addi-
tional proof in the fact that not even her
graves remain invioIate. Thousands Of
them have recently been destroyed 10
make room for Japanese improvements.
Even the ancestors who for centuries have
enjoyed undisturbed repose, who in their
lifetime of opposed all reform and advance
ment, and in their death went to swell the
fong list of those who are nothing less than
a terrible incubus 10 their descendants
must now share in the fate of the old en-
pire for whose blind conservatism they are
so largely responsible.
One Of the most fruitful sources of dis
pute is these same graves. A little man
came running into the compound some
weeks ago, in great distress because his
buffalo was accused OF exercising its
horns upon grave belonging TO another
man. In consequence of such rude dis
turbance of the Fong-Shu the mans wife
was very i'll, and he demanded IS damages
from the owner of the buffalo. The little
man protested that il was not his beast
that did the mischief and my teacher "a
literary GRADUATED, who was sitting iyv
made the apparently automatic statement:
well, If it wasn't your buffalo YOU won't
have to pay" Whereupon some friend OF
the aggrieved graveholdor took the case
before the magistrate. accusing the grad
uate himself of interfering against him
and the case is still unsettled. But time Is
nothing-a thousand years. more or less
are but as yesterday when 1t is past 10 A
Chinaman. The insignificant circumstance
however has deprived me of nv teacher
for some weeks, and these may Iengthen
into months ere he is at leisure to return
10 his duties 9. II. Grovesbeek.
Swallow, China