e
whole thing now lasts from the 13th of the moon, the day on which it
is customary to light up for the first time, to the 18th inclusive,
when all the fun and jollity is over and the serious business of life
begins anew. The 15th is the great time, work of every kind being as
entirely suspended as it is with us on Christmas Day. At night the
candles are lighted in the lanterns, and crackers are fired in every
direction. The streets are thronged with gaping crowds, and cut-purses
make small fortunes with little or no trouble. There being no
policemen in a Chinese mob, and as the cry of "stop thief" would meet
with no response from the bystanders, a thief has simply to look out
for some simple victim, snatch perhaps his pipe from his hand, or his
pouch from his girdle, and elbow his way off as fast as he can go.

Plenty of lights and plenty of joss-stick would be enough of
themselves to make up a festival for Chinamen; in the present instance
there should be an extra abundance of both, though for reasons not
generally known to uneducated natives. Ask a coolie why he lights
candles and burns joss-stick at the Feast of Lanterns, and he will
probably be unable to reply. The idea is that the spirits of one's
ancestors choose this occasion to come back _dulces revisere natos_,
and that in their honour the hearth should be somewhat more swept and
garnished than usual. Therefore they consume bundle upon bundle of
well-scented joss-stick, that the noses of the spirits may run no risk
of being offended by mundane smells. Candles are lighted, that these
disembodied beings may be able to see their way about; and their sense
of the beautiful is consulted by a tasteful arrangement of the pretty
lamps in which the dirty Chinese dips are concealed. Worship on this
occasion is tolerably promiscuous; the Spirit of the Hearth generally
comes in for his share, and Heaven and Earth are seldom left out in
the cold. One very important part of the fun consists in eating
largely of a kind of cake prepared especially for the occasion. Sugar,
or some sweet mince-meat, is wrapped up in snow-white rice flour until
about the size of a small hen's egg, only perfectly round, and these
are eaten by hundreds in every household. Their shape is typical of a
complete family gathering, for every Chinaman makes an effort to spend
the Feast of Lanterns at home.

Under the mournful circumstances of the late Emperor's death, the 15th
of the 1st Chinese moon w