Instructions from the Board of Rites received by the local -yaméns have named the 23rd instant at noon as the commencement of the official new year holidays when the official seals throughout the empire uro supposed to "have @ rest," by being duly enclosed in their various' cases, wrapped up and firmly sealed and Inid' aside for the space of one lunar month. Of course. there are the usual homtowing ceremonies attendant upon the "enclosing of the seals," which the curious can go to see on that day in the yuméns of the native city here. Every official, no matter even of the lowest rank, so long as be has a seal goes through this' ceremony on that day. When the chief mandarin is going through his prostrations, according to the Court ceremony of three genuflections and nine Kowtows, which he does first to his seal wrapped up in yellow satiner, and. then turning round facing a north-westerly direction towards Peking; his subordinates of civil rank stand in line on the right hand side going into the yamen and the military officers on the left hand side. As soon as the ceremony, which is performed in the great hall or Tut'ang, is over, the whole crowd for.a a semi-circle on the spot. before their superior officer and go down on their knees, making the ordinary one genuflection and three Kowtows as a form of congratulation that he is freed from official anxieties for the space of one month. The superior mandarin simply bends his body and bows
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.