worded thus:--"This is to express the
thanks of . . . the orphaned son who weeps tears of blood and bows his
head: of . . . the mourning brother who weeps and bows his head: of
. . . the mourning nephew who wipes away his tears and bows his head."

It is well known that all old and even middle-aged people in China
like to have their coffins prepared ready for use. A dutiful son will
see that his parents are thus provided, sometimes many years before
their death, and the old people will invite relatives or friends to
examine and admire both the materials and workmanship, as if it were
some beautiful picture or statue of which they had just cause to be
proud. Upon the coffin is carved an inscription with the name and
titles of its occupant; if a woman, the name of her husband. At the
foot of the coffin are buried two stone tablets face to face; one
bears the name and title of the deceased, and the other a short
account of his life, what year he was born in, what were his
achievements as a scholar, and how many children were born to him.
Periods of mourning are regulated by the degrees of relationship to
the dead. A son wears his white clothes for three years--actually for
twenty-eight months; and a wife mourns her husband for the same
period. The death of a wife, however, calls for only a single year of
grief; for, as the Sacred Edict points out, if your wife dies you can
marry another. The same suffices for brother, sister, or child.
Marriages contracted during these days of mourning are not only
invalid, but the offending parties are punished with a greater or
lesser number of blows according to the gravity of the offence.
Innumerable other petty restrictions are imposed by national or local
custom, which are observed with a certain amount of fidelity, though
instances are not wanting where the whole thing is shirked as
inconvenient and a bore.

Cremation, once the prevailing fashion in China, is now reserved for
the priest of Buddha alone,--that self-made outcast from society,
whose parting soul relies on no fond breast, who has no kith or kin to
shed "those pious drops the closing eye requires;" but who, seated in
an iron chair beneath the miniature pagoda erected in most large
temples for that purpose, passes away in fire and smoke from this vale
of tears and sin to be absorbed in the blissful nothingness of an
eternal Nirvana.

INQUESTS

Inquests in China serve, unfortunately, but to illustrate one more