Oct. 2.
Ocr Tunki correspondent gives us to-day a picturesque description of a funeral procession, which he recently encountered in old Anhui, near enough as distance is reckoned in China, yet wildly remote from 'Treaty port civilization in customs and thought. And behold amid the antique trappings of the display, " glaring modern note was struck by "twenty or thirty young bucks' forming up according to the modern military drill of the Government schools and blazing away intermittent volleys. thus China's energy goes to waste,' our correspondent reflected, as the mile-long procession straggled past bim along the river bank. And thus, ith all courtesy, we disagree entirely with the spirit of his reflexions. No doubt the time and money spent upon the funeral might have been more usefully spent in other ways—just as the old woman, in England, who starves herself in order to put by for her funeral and avoid being buried by the parish,'' appears rather foolish. But are we quite sure that such expenditure is really wasted, even by the most strictly scientific computation of values, and that we are right in trying to dissuade our proselytes from such practices?
It is all a question of the importance or uniniportance poetry compared with the matter of-fact of which, no doubt, matter-of-fact persons will declare that there can be question at all. Yet we venture to think it can hardly be denied that progress docs in many respects spell ugliness; and this not only in the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.