olutely interminable; then you meet your future partner
dressed out in satin and white ribbons, whom you are sure to meet in
gingham gowns or calico prints, every morning of your life ever after.
There she is, supported by her old father, decked out in his
old-fashioned brown coat, with a wig of the same colour, beautifully
relieving the burning redness of his huge projecting ears; and the
mother, puffed up like an overgrown bolster, encouraging the trembling
girl, and joining her maiden aunts of full fifty years, in telling her
to take courage, for it is what they must all come to. Bride's-maids and
mutual friends make up the company; and there, standing out before this
assemblage, you assent to everything the curate, or, if you are rich
enough, the rector, or even the dean, may say, shewing your knock-knees
in the naked deformity of white kerseymeres, to an admiring bevy of the
servants of both families, laughing and tittering from the squire's pew
in the gallery. Then the parting!--The mother's injunctions to the
juvenile bride to guard herself from the cold, and to write within the
week. The maiden aunts' inquiries, of, "My dear, have you forgot
nothing?"--the shaking of hands, the wiping and winking of eyes! By
Hercules!--there is but one situation more unpleasant _in_ this world,
and that is, bidding adieu to your friends, the ordinary and jailor,
preparatory to swinging from the end of a halter _out_ of it. The lady
all this time seems not half so awkward. She has her gown to keep from
creasing, her vinaigrette to play with; besides, that all her
nervousness is interesting and feminine, and is laid to the score of
delicacy and reserve.

_Blackwood's Magazine_.

* * * * *

MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

CURIOUS CHINESE CUSTOMS.

(_From the "Canton Register," the first English Newspaper published in
China_.)

BURIAL.

No corpse is allowed to enter the gates of Pekin without an imperial
order; because, it is said, a rebel entered in a coffin during the reign
of Kienlung. However, even at Canton, and in all other cities of the
empire, no corpse is permitted to enter the southern gate, because the
Emperor of China gets on his throne with his face towards the south.

THE NEW YEAR.

The Chinese make their new year commence on the new moon, nearest to the
time when the sun's place is in the 15th degree of Aquarius. It is the
greatest festival observed in the empire