The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine.”
Hamlet.
[152] “From time immemorial, the Chinese have employed a combination of two sets of characters, numbering ten and twelve respectively, to form a cycle of sixty terms for the purpose of chronological notation. The period at which this cycle was invented is a subject upon which complete uncertainty prevails, but there is little doubt that it first came into use as a method of reckoning years after the reform of the calendar in B.C. 104.”—Mayers’ Reader’s Manual.
The birthday on which any person completes his cycle is considered a very auspicious occasion. The second emperor of the present dynasty, K‘ang Hsi, completed a cycle in his reign, with one year to spare; and his grandson, Ch‘ien Lung (or Kien Lung) fell short of this only by a single year, dying in the same cyclical period as that in which he had ascended the throne.
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[153] Bride and bridegroom drink wine together out of two cups joined by a red string, typical of that imaginary bond which is believed to unite the destinies of husband and wife long before they have set eyes on each other. Popular tradition assigns to an old man who lives in the moon the arrangement of all matches among mortals; hence the common Chinese expression, “Marriages are made in the moon.”
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[154] The bill of sale always handed to the purchaser of a child in China, as a proof that the child is his bonâ fide property and has not been kidnapped, is by a pleasant fiction called a “deed of gift,” the amount paid over to the seller being therein denominated “ginger and vinegar money,” or compensation for the expense of rearing and educating up to the date of sale. This phrase originates from the fact that a dose of ginger and vinegar is administered to every Chinese woman immediately after the delivery of her child.
We may here add that the value of male children to those who have no heirs, and of female children to those who want servants, has fostered a regular kidnapping trade, which is carried on with great activity in some parts of China, albeit the penalty on discovery is instant decapitation. Some years ago I was present in the streets of Tientsin when a kidnapper was seized by the infuriated mob, and within two hours I heard that the man had been summarily executed.
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[155] The power of recalling events which have occurred in a previous life will be enlarged upon in several stories to come.
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