the best representative living of the effete civilization of Asia, wedded to the traditions of the past, looking ever backwards and never forwards, All things to to all men, in commercial transactions, and wonderfully enterprising in his own way, he is a law unto himself; and our politics and ambitions, our industrial problems, and the amenities of our social life, are but as vanity and vexation of spirit to him, and he will take no part in them.
Among the strangest of the strange customs which the Chinese have transplanted on American soil, is the annual "Feast of the Dead." Heaven comes nearer to the land of his birth than to any other land, and before he leaves it for barbarian regions he provides for the ultimate return of his bones for interment in the soil where his ancestors, in countless millions, sleep the last sleep. Meantime he believes that the spirits of his departed friends linger lovingly near the place where their bodies rest for the moment; and so long as he remains within reach of their temporary resting-place, he, ever true to the traditions of his race, pays an annual visit of ceremony to it, and, with a solemn gravity which is incomprehensible to the average Caucasian mind, makes an offering of creature comforts for the delectation of the disembodied spirits with which his imagination peoples all the air.
All Chinese festivals come at irregular periods, for the reason that their months do not correspond with our own, and they throw in an odd month from time to time to make the year come even, as we do
