Hochow, Kan., Mar. M4.
On the 27th ult. our city witnessed the largest funeral procession it hag had for years. The wife of a Mr. Hsu, a very prominent city father and much respected, passed away, aged 61 or 62 years (Chinese), and the obsequies were on an elaborate scale. The funeral was prefaced by some exciting experience the day previous, when the family determined on a plan to do good deeds to the whole town. Two hundred cash, or 18 coppers, with a small loaf of bread, wore handed out to all comers, male or female, old and young. To facilitate matters, male and female applicants separated, the former assembling in the Chao Chang ancestral hall, which contains wooden tables of the honoured dead who sacrificed their lives in a former Mohammedan rebellion; and the latter going to the arsenal, each to receive their allotted portion. As the Chinese expression runs, "To do good is difficult and so it proved in this case. Talk about sardines in a box It was simple enough to effect an entrance into the ancestral hall, but to make one's exit was a different matter. The crush was such that the crowd trampled on a little girl, and all but pressed the life out of the little tot, the case evidently being serious enough, for a certain amount of money was given in compensation. It is said that a man became so wedged in the mass of humanity that out of sheer fear ho cried. Some parties braved all this discomfort and danger and ventured several times into the enclosure, one fellow managing to get there four times and landing his quota each time. When tha amount of bread gave out, an additional four coppers were added, or 22 in all. Therg was a lavish liberality, as evidenced by the fact that 1,900,000 cash and 4,000 loaves of bread passed into the hands of tha multitude, hungry and otherwise, whose number could roughly be estimated at 8,000.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.