New Year's Day hag recently gone by again, the third time thia year. A large part of the population has donned its most ceremonious attire, and paid the season's respects. What! Three new years in one year? Yes, that is what Sining sees every year. First comes the foreign new year. Yaméns hang out their flags for a feeling of compulsion. Some calls are made out of respect for. the new order under the Republic. It is quite the form for men to put on at least a foreign hat. matters not that the hat makes him look like a Jew from Salem Street or a Bowery tough; the wearer is unconscious of any such impression. This New Year celebration lasts about throd days. Then comes the real New Year, observed much as every: where else in the land of Han. Some tire of the holidays and! resume regular duties after a few days, but most keep up the cele" bration for a week or so more.
The third New Year has just) passed. It affects more than a third of the Sining population, the Mohammedans. There supposed to be a month of fasting preceding, but the money-making propensities of this race of people lead them to make the month' more like the Chinese 12th moon. Like the student at home, who said: Don't let your studies interfere with your college course," so the Moslem here gays: Don't let your fasting interfere with your real business—making money." There may, too, be fasting in daylight; but after dark it is feasting into thd late hours of the night.
After the Moslem New Year opens, the Moslems become exceedingly religious. They crowd the Mosque in the suburb far he-yond its capacity, so that a great service has to be held on the big Drill Ground outside the city. there thousands are gathered.
The larger the crowd, the happier are the religious leaders from the chiefs to the little mullas. For on a set day a 2ollection of money is taken whi: goes to these leaders. The service of the day is scarcely over and the "Amen" has hardly been given, when there is a grand rush for the collection table tv gee how much has been given. On that day the hearts of the leaders are more in that cash and silver pile than in the less substantial ceremonies of religious ob-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.