Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1888-09-15 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

FANTAN.  Fenian is a gambling game of Chinese invention, which is described by the late Dr. Wells Williams as so simple that it may be called childish. The keeper of the gaming table has before him a pile of bright thin copper coins or casll, from which he takes a double handful, and laying them on the table covers them with a bowl. The players lay I their money on the remainder that will be left, one, two, three, or nothing, after the pile has been divided by four. The game is thus an extension of the old one "Odd or Even." A clerk records the bets, and the croupier with two long chopstioks proceeds to count the coin in fours in the presence of the players. Owing to the evil wrought by an epidemic of this game when it was invented the Chinese Government prohibited it under death penalties; but it is still played, especially at holiday seasons. The horde of ' fantail, however, is the Portuguese colony of Macao, where a large part of the revenue is derived from farming or selling by auction the sole right to keep fantau gaming houses, and that colony is accordingly el notorious rendezvous for gamblers from many parts of South China, Hong Kong included. A recent writer in an Eastern newspaper describing Macao refers to a fantail gambling den as a shanty lit by petroleum lamps, bady trimmed, and emitting dense volumes of nauseating smoke; a table, surrounded by a crowd of dilapidated, dirty Chinese, is presided over by a couple of obese Chinese bankers generally naked from the waist up; outside the circle of players is an evil-smelling I and repulsive crowd of spectators, kept in order by a Portuguese of their own stamp; behind a railing erected over an aperture in the upper story, right over the gaming table and the reeking atmosphere, is 7a group of ladies of Macao, flanked by Chinese dames cracking almonds and melon seeds, and redolent of cocoa-nut oil; bard by a Chinaman lies stretched on his back, opium pipe in hand; and at each turn in the game one hears a low screeching exclamation hiyah, from the motley crowd as a gambler shows extra good or ill luck. Needless to say, the chances are in favour of the banker; but, in addition, he is entitled to seven per cent, of all the winnings. Otherwise the game is said to be fair, but there are dark hints of two coins ingeniously stuck together and easily separated when necessary, of a confederate inside the box which acts as a table who slips up a coin through the mat into the pile. Of the ruin and crime produced by Macao and its fantan " shops " there is no doubt, for they are widespread. The Chinese who has lost his last cent, perhaps his home and wife and children, either becomes a pirate or takes a dose of opium and thus ends his woes. It is no unusual thing to see a suicide's body dangling from the branch of a tree in the town or its neighbourhood. Thieves and pirates, shopkeepers and Canton mandarins, ladies, boatwomen, and prostitutes, public functionaries of Macao, and wild young Englishmen from Hong Kong make their way to these squalid gambling dens, and generally find ruin there. Pirates rob and officials "squeeze," and shopkeepers toil to pour their money into the fat I bankers' laps. One hundred thousand pounds is the price paid by the croupier for the solo right to keep fantau shops for a year in Macao—a town where there is no trade, no industry, no source of wealth, and which, even with its crowded Chinese quarters, would be a tenth-rate town in point of population in any country in tho world.  TOWLE'S PINISYROYAL AND SSZYL Pus POT Pp:mates quickly correct all irregularities and relieve the distressing symptoms co prevalent with the sex. Boxes la 141 and 2s 9d, of all chendsts. Bent anywhere for 15 or 34 Inamps by the LINCOLN AND :11DLAXll COUNTIES Dana Co.. 1dx,..0.L.N.  No sooner is a Chinese borborn into the world than his father proceeds to write down eight characters or words, each set of two representing reepeotively the exact hour, day, month, and year of his birth. These are handed by the father to a fortune-teller, whose business it is to draw up from them a certain book of fate, generally spoken of as the boy's pat-tsz, or "eight characters." Herein the fortune-teller describes the good and evil which the boy is likely to meet with in after life, and the means to be adopted in order to secure the one and to avert the other. In order to understand something of the value of this document, we must glance at the Chinese method of reckoning time. There are only twelve Chinese hours to our twentyfour. Beginning with 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., which is their first hour, the names are rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, cock, dog, and pig. As everybody is supposed to partake more or less of the nature of the ' animal at whose hour he is born, it appears obvious that -C.g ~ it would never do to send a ,rabbit boy to the school of a tiger schoolmaster. Hence the importance of consulting the pat-tsz of both parties before entering upon any kind of agreement. It is a fact that it is thus referred to on every important ' occasion. The pat-tsz having received the first attention, the father prostrates himself before the ancestral tablets, and there offers up thanksgiving for the birth of his boy. In every house in China a room, or, amongst the poor, a niche in the wall of their common room, is set apart for the worship of anceetore. The names of those of the four paet generations are painted on wooden tablets, before which, night and morning, as well as on other special occasions, joss-sticks are burned in honour of the departed. The father next visits the temple of the goddess called "mother." She is supposed to look after the welfare of all children until they arrive at the age of sixteen. Here incense and oblations of fruit, &c., are offered, and the goddess is requested to look with favour upon the precious boy.—From " The (Irma" for duly.