Iw any other country, the curious ex-Gitement which has prevailed lately on the subject of " tails," would be laughed Bt as an evidence of superstition, and passed over, The idea of a " paper sprite" with paper shears going about the country invisible, to cut off people's tails, is so ridiculous that we can hardly conceive it obtaining general credence, But. nothing is too absurd for the lower orders of Chinese, and many even of those who might be thought more intelligent are half-persuaded that this is now happening. A readiness to believe in counter-spells is a natural concomitant of a belief in sorcery, and 80 we find half the population going about with bits of paper bearing mystic characters, in their hair, as a protection it shears. At first sight, the misfortune would not seem a very desperate one, if a man did lose portion of his queue; the lower half being generally of silk, and therefore ensily replaced. Still, given the belief in the sprites, we can fancy it is an uncomfortable sensation to think they are watching an opportunity of operating on you; and @ more practical Reason for terror exists, in the saying that a man whose tail has been cut off will dio within four months. How this lotte ted is not very clear probably it was started as an adjunct to the cutting—to further disturb imen'a minds, The next peculiarity is the origin of the sprites. They seem to out out of red paper, furnished with paper shears, and magically invested with the power of locomotion by some persons unknown, who commission them to perform their eccentric work.—This is the supernatural side of the question, But there is a political one, though it is so curiously mixed up with the former in the minds of even intelligent Chinamen, that it does not seem to lessen their horror of the paper shears. The chief or ideal sprite is re~ presented to have shears in one band and a sword in the other—the shears to lop off the badge of China's subjection, the sword to strike down her alien oppressor. And, as disturb ance of men's minds is the necessary prelude, in China, to any uprising, we we here a practical motive for the getting up of the excitement, anda practical hint conveyed in the measures taken for the purpose, Assuming this to be the explanation of the mystery, the prime movers in the matter and modus operandi of their agents, must be questions of keen interest for the raling powers. For it must be recognised at the outset that tails do drop off. The fancy is not utterly baseless, like the tale which was started at the time of the Tientsin Massacre, that the foundations of our Cathedral were laid on dead bodies.
Many Chinamen have lost their tails, and we can hardly admit that the imaginary sprites are real men with steel shears; for it could hardly happen that some one would not have been detected before this, in the act of cutting. The most likely explunntion is that the agents, whoever they are, of the con. spiraters, whoever they may be, operate by means of some potent acid. It is not very hard to conceive a man applying a little acid, in a crowd, to a stray tail or two, as opportunity offers; and the suid tails dropping off bye-and-bye, as they are said todo, without visible ngency.—Who are the prime movers in the matter is a question which the man. darins would probably give much to have answered. As we have said before, such disturbances of the public mind are invariable preludes, in China, to rebellion. Rebellion does not necessarily follow, but rebellion is invariably preceded by some popular agitation; and the political outlook just now is sufficiently uncertain to afford very good reason for viewing such indications with uneasiness. Would-be-rebels China or elsewhere, must wait their opportunity; and the nspect of affairs in the North-west, and the uncertainty of foreign relations, presage a possible opportunity, for which some one or some clique may have thought it useful to still further pave the way, The whole thing may subside as it has begun—coming apparently from nowhere, and fading away into space; or it may, as we have said, be the prelude to more serious excitement, Th darins are said to be inclined to inculpate the "White Lily Society," of which we wrote last month; but we necessarily know very little of their suspicions or the grounds for the It is-probably a proof how "mi: and bewildered they are themselves, that some American missionaries who lately passed through Nanking, and visited the Ming Tombs, were followed in their excursion by four soldiers—to see that they did not take the opportu. nity of so convenient a spot to commission and despatch some of the paper sprites" on their dreaded work
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.