In a former letter, a month ago, it was mentioned that the cholera had been exceedingly fatal, and that it seemed to penetrate everywhere with frightful impartiality. Since then reports from other districts east and west appear to make it probable that they have suffered far more than we. There are counties in Chibli to the westward where the number of deaths in the average village would seem to rise to scores, and in some to between one and ewo hundred. As in other parts of China the supply of coffins comes far short of the demand, and such as there are have commanded treble the ordinary price. In this article, as in others, there is never any provision for sudden demand. Trees ere cut in the spring and sawed up as convenience may dictate, but nowhere is there any sipply of ready-made lumber or boards, or indeed of any other manufactured article in a prepared state. A good many years ago, in a moment of temporary insanity, the writer told the carter when he went to the next market, to buy a hatchet wherewith to split the kindling. On his return he handed out something less than a dozen huge horseshoes (apparently from the 'Cape horses"), and to a natural remonstrance marked that "this kind of a toy was not to be got as easy ay all that—here was the material—call a blacksmith and tell him what sort of a hatchet' you want This was done and the result was a weapon which might safely have been an ob-{etter of the second commandment. But ject of worship, without infraction of the to return to the cholera, which has in many places returned upon itself in a sort of eddy, many days, or even weeks, after it seemed to have gone quite by. But the second instalment differs from the first materially. It seems that there are different kinds of cholera, the "yin," and the "yang." The former conceals itself on the inside of the body in mysterious black pockets, which must be punctured to let the poison out. The latter is more like what we had before, but with throat and head symptoms quite distinct, and Blood at all. The patients die because the ricking with the needle fails to draw any doctors cannot " extract the root" of the disease! The insane determination to carry out the usual rites irrespective of the danger to the living is responsible for the excessive mortality. Corpses are kept in the house a suitable number of periods of seven days, until the maggots may actually be seen crawling in and out the cracks of the coffins, and this in rooms in which people are eating and sleeping What we again respectfully inquire of the Wise Men of the East is, why all the Chinese do not: die off every time the cholera arrives? In one special case we have heard of, a family, well-to-do, numbered thirteen (unlucky gate!) twelve of groom died and were in some way buried, leasing only a young gi, The burial was due wholly ¢o the faithful hired man, who stuck by when not one member of her clan would come near the place for fear of contation. The girl herself is said to have struck out the "happy thought" that it would be well for her to marry this efficient and exemplary factotum. As the rest of the clan had done nothing to help her, they could not object to the singular plan, which was said to be arranged by document." If the story is authentic, as it appears ito be, it means that when the cholera scare is over the clan will go to law about the business and oust this pretender, for girls have no part or lot in the father's property, and an " alien surname" cannot come by such a side door, unless (as rarely happens) the family is praotically extinct.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.