In a style not more elevated than the rhymes for gender in our old-mars, the poem ments, four ties in life, ana fan assortment of historical, biogra~ phical, physical, and metaphysical information—as' much as could be packed into 1008 words. Being Girected to the young, the Three Letter Classi proportionate tion of infant prodigies of virtue oF skill; and it is in these terms that the cardinal doctrine of Filial Piety was imparted—
"The tittle parents' bed, Ab, would that allo ital precept tei jos wore by tke The baby' Jung only four re= signed the envied peary Deterence, to elder. brothers there should be our early' eave."
The individual who taught these undying platitudes belonged to shabby genteel classe ainters. Lawyers. were not neces sary in the China of 20 years ago, as every bystander advocated ons side or another in every quarrels when the yamen runners arrived somebody was sure to be bastinadoed, and the remainder had. the comfortable feeling that Justice, even if a trifle misdirected, had at all "events been. done. Of the painter, it was supposed that he hack attempted all other crafts, "ave beggary, and had proved inefficient. The mediciner's patients insisted om being taken seriously, and demanded: either a large piece of red adhesive paper to be applied with a spirit compelling incantation, or pills the largest size, or some nauseous drench that would semi them reel ing; but as the contract was based. on the formula of "no cure, no pay," money owed more readily sto. the undertaker than to the quack.
'A shade less precarious was the schoolmaster's existence. It is trac that his pupils were capriciously withdrawn, and the parents em= braced any excuse oF none at nil for defrauding him of his fees; but there was always a chance that some for~ ward youth-might win out in the Givil Service examinations and that the schoolmaster might vise on the skirts of his official career to the dignity of being a yamen parasite. At all events he had his subsidiary: profession of ealigrapher, employed in the composition of elegant letters and in the decoration of red visiting wh cards, in which case payment was by the piece. His penmanship was a source of comforting vanity, and he could forget cold and hunger for hours together if he should meet a fellow-penman and commence a cussion of adroit strokes of the camel'shair brush. And he had his honorific association with the im= mortals of literature, even if only ire the pages of the' Three Letter Classic, which made him a reputable member of society in a land where Titerature had always governed and no printed paper might be destroyed.
"The little Lia of the House of T'ang when only gven years. old, A petite, bor was called and Ronact the iterates enolled. igh" honours in offela Hife, thought young in years he gained: With zeal ye youths, a tke you may be attained."—"Gi Herald"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.