The eternal question, "why," at this particular time, ' should the Chinese revive so enthusiastically, a custom that was so closely linked with the China of the eight-legged essay, the days of autocracy and imperialism, arises.
The dilapidated temples with their crumbling idols, desecrated with every desecration that naturally results from having half-discipliner Soldiers or robbers residing therein, the uncouth and unclean priests ween wandering about, the falling: off of pilgrims to shrines once very popular, indicate that it ly not a recrudescence of worship.
The banishment of those who at the beginning of the present century were regarded ay the literati of the Jand the elite of an ancient n, ie, the instructors of youth of the country, the Hsi ty'ais, the Chu-jons, the graduates of the 1st and 2nd degrees—and even the Han-lins—the Metropolitan graduatos,—is with the sad fact that they are not considered suitable to teach the Lower Primaries, evidence that Inst night's display had no reference to the old system of education that has been dead and buried for two decades.
The absence of propaganda for the restoration of the Monarchy, the ery against imperialism, the patient expectation that in a civil administration shall be lished, are proof that this New Year's outburst was not an express sion of disloyalty to democracy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.