The local B.A. examinations have just been held here, adding the spice of excitement to the general monotony of our life. Fire-crackers and red posters have duly honoured the successful aspirants to literary honours, though if even a decent amount of national pride were among the mental equipments of the Chinese, there is surely more cause to don the sackcloth than to parade the newly acquired button. It is a matter of local gossip that one " substitute" in the examination managed to pass three different men into the B.A. ranks, thereby ing all honest men and greatly enriching himself and the officials in charge of the examinations who were bribed to wink at travesty of literary merit. Long fami ity with the various phases of Chinese life does not lessen the surprise and pain at the wholesale deception that everywhere characterises the people. Everyone here knows the fraudulent B.A's, but in the whole city no-one was man enough to omit the customary red silk and firecrackers in honour of them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.