"What a lot of patent candles we should have if the same custom prevailed in America! Ingenious men would puzzle their brains to invent candles that would burn longer than any others; and we might expect to see any morning the advertisement of 'The Patent Inexhaustible Candle that will neither burn nor be blown out!' And somebody would devise a system of making a secret connection between the candle and a gas-pipe, so that the supply of combustible material would never be exhausted. The lawyers would not like this mode of settling matrimonial difficulties, and there is no probability that such a law will ever be made.
"To go into mourning, the people shave their heads; and when the king dies, the top-knots are removed from the heads of all his male subjects from one end of Siam to the other. The only exception to the rule is in the case of princes who are older than the king; and sometimes this exception gives rise to lively disputes concerning the princely age."
[CHAPTER XVI.]
CREMATION IN SIAM.—TRADE, TAXES, AND BIRDS.
SCENE ON A SMALL CANAL NEAR BANGKOK.
One morning, while they were taking a row on the river for the purpose of visiting one of the canals, our friends observed a dense smoke rising from the vicinity of one of the temples. Fred was the first to see it, and wondered what it was for. As they neared the temple, they saw that the smoke proceeded from a burning pile, where several persons were standing around.