The Chinese pretend to have men among them so prodigious as fifteen feet high. Melchior Nunnez, in his letters from India, speaks of porters who guarded the gates of Pekin, who were of that immense height; and in a letter dated in 1555, he avers that the emperor of that country entertained and fed five hundred of such men for archers of his guard. Hakewill, in his "Apologie," 1627, repeats this story. Purchas, in his "Pilgrimes," 1625, refers to a man in China who "was cloathed with a tyger's skin, the hayre outward, his arms, head and legges bare, with a rude pole in his hand; well-shaped, seeming ten palmes or spans long; his hayre hanging on his shoulders."
Trying Land Titles in Hindostan.
According to the "Asiatic Researches," a very curious mode of trying the titles of land is practised in Hindostan: Two holes are dug in the disputed spot, in each of which the lawyer for the plaintiff and the lawyer for the defendant put one of their legs, and remain there until one of them is tired or complains of being stung by the insects, in which case his client is defeated. In this country it is the client, and not the lawyer, who puts his foot into it.
An Asylum for Destitute Cats.
Of all the curious charitable institutions in the world, the most curious, probably, is the Cat Asylum at Aleppo, which is attached to one of the mosques there, and was founded by a misanthropic old Turk, who, being possessed of large granaries, was much annoyed by rats and mice, to rid himself of which he employed a legion of cats, who so effectually rendered him service, that in return he left them a sum in the Turkish funds, with strict injunctions that all destitute and sickly cats should be provided for till such time as they took themselves off again. In 1845, when a famine was raging in all North Syria, when scores of poor people were dropping down in the streets and dying there, from sheer exhaustion and want, men might daily be encountered carrying away sack loads of cats to be well fed on the proceeds of the last will and testament of that vagabond old Turk.
Treasure Digging.
A patent passed the great seal in the fifteenth year of James I. "to allow to Mary Middlemore, one of the maydes of honor to our dearest consort Queen Anne (of Denmark), and her deputies, power and authority to enter into the abbies of St. Albans, St. Edmunsbury, Glassenbury and Ramsay, and into all lands, houses and places, within a mile belonging to said abbies, there to dig and search after treasure supposed to be hidden in such places."
House of Hen's Feathers.
There exists at Pekin a phalanstery which surpasses in eccentrictity all that the fertile imagination of Fourier could have conceived. It is called Ki-mao-fan; that is, "House of Hen's Feathers." This marvellous establishment is simply composed of one great hall, the floor of which is covered over its whole extent with one vast, thick layer of feathers. Mendicants and vagabonds who have no other domicile come to pass the night in this immense dormitory. Men, women and children, old and young, are admitted without exception. Every one settles himself, and makes his nest as well as he can for the night in this ocean of feathers. When day dawns he must quit the premises, and an officer of the company stands at the door to receive the rent of one sapeck (one-fifth of a farthing) each for the night's lodging. In deference, no doubt, to the principle of equality, half places are not allowed, and a child must pay the same as a grown person.
On the first establishment of this eminently philanthropic institution, the managers of it furnished each of the guests with a covering; but it was found necessary to modify this regulation, for the communist company got into the habit of carrying off their coverlets to sell them, or to supply an additional garment during the cold weather. It was necessary, therefore, to devise some method of reconciling the interests of the establishment with the comfort of the guests, and the way in which the problem was solved was this—