Dairen, Jan. 18.
The holiday season which stretches intermittently from December 21 to te January 14 has ended, for this city. Expressions of relief are heard in many tongues. Largely gone for the future will be the familiar throbbing in the head, the feeling that the mouth is incapable of coping with the size of the tongue, the penetrating desire for sleep, the impression that the working days which follow nights of jollification will never finish.
Beginning with Christmas Eve when all good foreigners shun the comforts of home for revels abroad until Russian New Years Day the people of Әsiren live mainly in an atmosphere of relaxation ana merry-making. Hardly has slight normality of the senses been achieved than it is time for new parties and all that goes with them. Nor are the foreigners alone in their jollity. The Japanese have gradually learned to take Christmas as a time for fun and frolic and they join whole-heartedly in the spirit of the season, Actually though it is not until the New Year that the Japanese settle down sternly to the enjoyment that the time portends. Nor are they satisfied with one insignificant day or divertisement. Practically for ill it is a matter ome people faintly they a a week io celebrate in thorough fashion.
Much calling and entertainment in one another's homes with the distribution and receipt of presents is ordained and many rosy cheeks are observed. he outward and visible sign for the Japanese is a form of structure on each side of the outer door made of bamboo, rice snd pine leaves though far fewer of these were to be seer: tis year then former This might be interpreted as a sign that those in China have no: been been forgotten and a mark ut sympathy, for the people of Japan consider it poor taste to indulge in riotous expressions of joy while there is fighting soing on ly their men Another indigestion of patriotism was in the number of people who attended the Dairen Shrine on New Year's Day, being far in excess of other years while the collections amounted to no less than Y.1,600.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.