This festival beginning on the 1st day of the 7th moon (falling this year on the 11th of August) and continuing to the 15th day (25th inst.), is being now celebrated by the Buddhist devotees of this port with the chanting of special prayers for all wandering spirits by bonzes, engaged by the hundred by public' subscription, in largo temples and improvised sheds. These prayers are for the spirits of people who have died here on land, who have no relatives or descendants to buy" their way into Hades and who have therefore to wander restlessly about "with no place to harbour themselves from the cruel weather." These Buddhist prayers serve wandering spirits in the capacity of "certificates of respectability" to ensure their admittance within the gates of the thick-walled city of Féngtw" (the Chinese Hades), and in due, time, after the bonzes have completed their fortnight-long prayers for the dead, a great bonfire will be lighted to burn the paper clothes and silver paper sycee and imitation Mexican dollars for the use of these wandering spirits, the first to clothe them in a decent manner before they enter Féngtu, and the paper money to enable them to bribe the gate-keepers of Hades into letting them'in and to pay the police runners of King Pluto (Yenlo Wang—there are ten of these Kings, before each of whose tribunals every spirit must appear in succession, to give an account of the life he had spent when in the Upper World, or Yang Chien.") For the spirits of those who lost their ives in the Huangpu River and adjacent creeks, boats are hired carrying Buddhist bonzes chanting the special prayers for the occasion, which cruise up and down the various waterways in this neighbourhood, and at night these boats are brilliantly decorated with lighted Jan-terns, "to attract the attention of the spirits" while every now and then sacrificial foods are thrown into the water to appease the hunger of these wandering water sprites. In due course of time—at'the end of the 15th day of this 7th moon—all the paper clothes and money which have been obtained for the purpose from subscribers are also burnt at the head of each bonze-freighted boat and the ashes scattered on the face of the waters, to enable these wandering water spirits to obtain the clothes and money they need to gain admittance, like their comrades who died on land, within the gates of Hades.
Now the question may be asked Why is all this money—amounting in Shanghai alone to over $60,000 each year—spent on behalf of spirits who have neither descendant nor kinsman in Shanghai to perform such rites for them? Would it not' be better to economise and let these wanderers wander their way homeless and destitute for all time, since they are no concern of any outsider? Asamatterof fact, like all such things self-interest lies at the base of it all, for Buddhist priests—for reasons of self-interest also, of course—tell their believers and votaries that these wandering spirits are capable of doing immense harm to people who are in health, if not assisted in getting into Hades where in proportion to the weight of sins committed in life a spirit has to wait for long or for short periods his turn in passing the turn-stile, or Wheel of Life, and so transmigrate once more into the life of the Upper World. These wandering spirits must therefore be propitiated by prayers and Bud-Ghistic ceremonies, ad infinitum—there's where the bonzes get their money—or else they will trouble healthy people and throw them into all kinds of dire sicknesses. Hence the eagerness with which Buddhist votaries subscribe large sums of money for prayers, incense, sacrificial foods and paper sycee and dollacs twice each year, namely, during the 7th and the 10th months—the latter month however in a lesser degree.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.