better bit of scenery. A box, something like a dovecot, was fixed on the top of the frames, and in another a large pole was placed, resting on the stage and towering above the frame-work and canvas; a good deal of hard work was required to get all the pieces fixed together. The "punch and judy" box was finally surmounted by a square frame with an arched piece of bamboo attached to the front bar, and from it a piece of canvas was hung, which completed the representation of a grand arched window or doorway; another canvas-covered frame was placed in front of the whole erection, and possibly it was meant for a range of steps, or a balcony, in fact, it might have been meant for a garden or anything else; at any rate the upper half of the "punch and judy" box was left open, except that a loose curtain hung over it, and it was evidently meant for a window or doorway. And what did all this rickety pile or wood and canvas represent? Why, it was a palace, of course; and an imperial palace! Aftef it had been all put together, the actors of the last comedy were just making their exit,-the band had settled down in their new position and seemed to be making more noise than ever— (for they were now right in front of our box)—and the actors in the concluding piece came on the stage. We were told it was to be an historical play; the first part of it certainly wasn't, but we had seen the same sort of thing in Chinese historical plays before—a curious mixing up of acrobatic feats, tumbling somersaults, sword exercise, fighting, singing, and everything mixed together. The first lot of actors who now came in were four acrobats, who went through a lot of manœuvres, striking attitudes, and moving about the stage in a manner somewhat approximating to certain movements in dancing a Scotch reel; and they were singing all the time. They afterwards tumbled somersaults, and one of the chief actors was the individual who had appeared in the farce as a small-footed lady; he still wore the artificial small feet, and he showed considerable ability as an acrobat when he tumbled somersaults and lighted on the awkward wooden pegs which represented the small feet of a Chinese lady. Another actor came carrying in his hands a small wooden board—it might have done for a knife-board-and he went through some very strange evolutions; he laid down the board on the stage, in an angular position in front of the palace, and then drew himself up in a peculiar attitude and walked over the board; his dress was a very strange mixture of bright colours, and he wore a white mask, with black beard and moustache; what he was meant for we don't know, and it took some considerable time before we discovered what he meant by lifting about that wooden board. The tumblers having retired, four young men came in, carrying the body of another on their shoulders; in coming forward they all walked over this mysterious board, and then went up in front of the palace and shoved the fellow they had on their shoulders in at the "punch and judy" box window; he had barely room to get through it without bringing the whole erection down, but he soon reappeared behind it and walked out at the door by which he had half a minute before been carried in. The old white-masked fellow picked up his board and walked out too-his board was meant for a bridge! Another acrobat then came in, and kicked about on the stage for some time, throwing his feet very high in the air till he touched his toes with his hand; he kicked himself about at one corner of the stage, struck a bold attitude, waved his arms about promiscuously, rushed to another corner, and went through the same jumping and kicking performance. Then other four acrobats came in, threw themselves about on the stage, tumbling somersaults and jumping over each other; the one with the small feet "brought down the house" when he walked round the stage on his hands; two tables

were next placed one above the other at the pillar at the left hand side of the stage, and two tables in the same way at the right side; two of the acrobats went to each side, scrambled up the tables, and got on to a horizontal bar fixed between the pillars, the four of them going through various feats on the bar all at the same time, and they descended one after the other by throwing back somersaults from the top of the tables,-coming down on the stage with great force, and almost breaking it down. They next had a small table placed on the stage by itself, and the four made a rush at it, tumbling somersaults over the table without touching it, and then made their exit. Well, this was all very well for acrobatic performances, but what was the imperial palace there for? We were anxious to see something of this piece which they called an historical play, but it was now about half-past eleven, and the band had given us a headache. The white-masked fellow came in again with his board and laid it down with solemnity; he was followed by four men, who crossed his plank, climbed up the front of the palace, and went down through the roof; one of them reappeared at the top, hung a red bag -meant for a head-on the big pole, and then he tumbled a somersault from the top of the palace wall; his comrades came out by the "punch and judy" box part of the palace, one of them carrying a female with dishevelled hair; she was lashed to his shoulders with ropes. This looked something more like a play. While the palace was thus entered by three or four fellows, several of the old men from the band, and others on the stage, had to come and hold the framework steady, else the whole palace would have toppled over! The ruffians who stole the female ran out at one door and in at another several times; three of them were armed with tinfoil swords, and the burden-bearer-the one who carried the female-was protected by them; he did not seem to have a very heavy burden, and the female was most likely only a bundle of rags. Another party of four or five armed men came to the palace, and seeing the red bag hanging on the pole, one climbed up and threw it down, tumbling a somersault after it; others entered the palace and rushed out again, raising a hue and cry, and they set off in pursuit of the other party. The offending party came on the stage again, and the white-faced fellow laid down his board for a bridge to let them pass over, but lifted it so that the others could not overtake them. The opposing parties increased in numbers, and kept rushing on to the stage and off again; at times half a dozen or more would engage in a fight and brandish swords and spears, dancing about the stage, and kicking up an awful row; the acrobats would come in and tumble somersaults in the middle of the opposing armies; and they kept up this sort of thing so long, without any appearance of coming to a crisis, that at a quarter to twelve o'clock we left them to fight it out.

THE CITY OF SHANGHAI; ITS STREETS, TEMPLES,

PRISONS, AND GARDENS.

VISIT to Shanghai City is of very great interest to a foreigner when he has a Chinese friend with him who knows everything about the place, and although most foreigners here have been in it once or twice, there are very few who can say they have seen everything in it that is actually worth seeing, for many a one may only take a listless walk through some of its streets, pick up a few curios at the stalls, and, getting disgusted with the whole place, leave it as soon as he can possibly find his way out,-which is rather difficult to do sometimes, and vow that he will never go within its walls again. On a Sunday afternoon we made up a party of three or four foreigners, and two Chinese friends. One of the latter knew the labyrinth of the City streets as well as a London hansom cab-driver knows the way from Cheapside to Piccadilly, and the other, who acted as interpreter, was a highly intelligent Chinese gentleman, educated at Yale College, U.S., and who is proud of being a naturalized American citizen. We entered the City at half-past two o'clock in the afternoon, and a beautiful day it was toofine, clear, and the roads dry. The early winter is always the best season for exploring the City, because its sanitary state is then less obnoxious than in the heat of summer weather. The day was therefore in every respect favourable as far as the auspices were concerned; it was the seventeenth day of the 10th Moon. Whether it is set down in the Chinese Calendar as a favourable day for making a journey we don't know; at any rate we did not consider that much at the time, but from what we saw were convinced that the day was a special one with the Chinese, for the city seemed to be en fête, and one might go twenty times without seeing so much as was crowded into our visit extending over two and a half hours. We entered by the New North Gate, and at once proceeded towards what are known as the Tea Gardens. In our way thither we had to traverse about a dozen narrow streets, some leading south, others west, east, in fact in all directions; first we passed through a long street lined with shops and warehouses on each side; then by the side of a dirty stagnant creek, with shops on one hand; over a small bridge and along narrower streets, with the sky obscured from view by the wooden and canvas signboards and ornamental tablets stretching from one side of the street to the other; then over another bridge; through narrow and crowded streets, till we came to more open ground by the side of a creek, where there were crowds of licensed beggars,―male, female, old, maimed, and • blind, and each of them holding out a basket with a few cash in it, while the poor creatures implore every passer-by to give them cash. The blind ones know when a foreigner passes, by his heavy tread, and the noise of hard-heeled boots on the rough granite blocks, for a Chinaman might walk over them in his felt-soled shoes without a blind man knowing that he passed. We never saw any of these beggars getting anything from a native, and when a foreigner gives them anything, he is sure to be followed by dozens of them all the way through the City-a mistake which we avoided, at least at this stage of the journey. The ground here is more open, and on both sides of the creek there is room for Celestial showmen and acrobats,

fortune-tellers, and gamblers; but further on when we come to the large pond surrounding the old Tea House, there is quite a large market square, or "garden" as it is called. On this occasion every part of it was occupied, and the scene was almost as lively as Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday. A casual glance was all we had time to give them, but it was sufficient for our purpose. The first performer whose proceedings attracted our notice was an old man, who was surrounded by about fifty Celestials of all ages and both sexes; the old show-man had monopolised a small strip of ground by the side of the creek, and the eager spectators crowded round the performer on all sides, but still preserving a limited open space for him. He was a man who looked as if fifty years had passed over his head; his hair was becoming grey, and precious little tail left; he was stripped bare to the waist, but had on as much threadbare blue cottons-their original colour bleached out of them, and now only a mass of patches—in the shape of wide, very wide trousers, as would have made suits for two or three men; his old feltshoes were in a very dilapidated state, and the excessive amount of cotton rags he wore for stockings, made his ankles of elephantine proportions. He now walked backward and forward on his strip of ground, throwing his arms about like a maniac; he smote his breast with his right hand, then with his left, stretched out both arms, and clenched his fists; walked round and then dropped his arms; walked round again with his hands hanging down, while he was looking anxiously for cash to be thrown into his ground; he then made a great effort, which was about all he could do,-he picked up an iron bolt, that any child might have lifted, threw it down, sticking it into the earth, and once more went on the walk round. He was a fraud, and though the Celestials might be content to look at him all day doing that, it is not probable that he made much money by it. Close by there was a small booth or tent, of bamboo and canvas, inside of which about half a dozen Chinamen were sitting. The proprietor of this concern was a fortune-teller and phrenologist. The old patriarchal humbug sat at the back of the tent; behind him the extravagant pictures of some Chinese worthies were hung in paper on the canvas; in front of the fortune-teller was his small table, with writing materials, joss-sticks, and other paraphernalia; and all round about there were eager observers, listening to the wonderful man reading the fortune of a well-to-do native, and watching the movements when the phrenologist placed his fingers on the bumps of his customers' craniums, then put on a long and sage countenance, and uttered profoundly wise sayings; put forth his hand to draw in the wealth just deposited by his constituent, while the latter tabled another five cash, and was determined to hear more of his fortune, at any expense. When we had passed the fortune-teller we came within sight of the "garden" where most of the shows were being held. There were about half a dozen peep-shows, in foreign style, the large ornamental box standing on a table, and the little peep-holes in the box through which the Celestials peered and witnessed the wonders of the world; several of the peep-shows had a decided appearance of foreign manufacture, in. the showy glass cases with which they were surmounted, with pictures of palaces or international exhibition buildings, but we did not turn aside to see what they were. There was one old man there, amongst a crowd of itinerant fruit-sellers and confectioners, whose little game for obtaining chash in exchange for roast chestnuts was rather peculiar; he held in one hand three spikes of bamboo about six inches long, and to the end of one of these sticks a red silk thread was attached, but the sticks were so held that there was as much chance of winning in the "three card trick" as in choosing the bamboo with the thread; he manipulated for our

benefit by picking up a cash and placing it on one of the sticks, then pulled the stick out, but it had no thread, repeating the trick several times, sometimes placing the cash on the stick with the thread attached, and at other times putting it on the wrong ones; then shifting them about till it was impossible to tell which was which; the evident arrangement being that a Celestial paid a few cash for a trial,—if successful he got a few roast chestnuts, and if unsuccessful-why then he didn't.

In this Celestial Vanity Fair there were numerous stalls for the sale of sweetmeats, pears, oranges, and cooked sweet-potatoes; stalls loaded with toys; stalls covered with classical literature; stalls of curios, with anything on them from valuable jade-stone ornaments to old nails and champagne corks. Hundreds of natives were loitering all over the place, many of them patronizing the peep-shows; the confectioners and sweetmeat stall-keepers appeared to be doing a good trade, to judge by the piles of cash lying on their tables; but it was at the open air performances of the acrobats, where there was no compulsory payment, where there were very few cash tossed into the ring, and where the sending round of the hat would have been the most effectual method of dispersing the crowd, that the natives gathered in the largest numbers. Near to a small temple or joss-house, on the east side of the Tea House lake, there was a crowd of people, and on looking over the shoulders of some of them, we could see that the attraction was gambling with dice; but close by there was another and much larger crowd, surrounding a couple of acrobatic performers, who were marching to and fro, striking peculiar attitudes, and evidently preparing for the execution of some feats of strength, tumbling, juggling, or some other mountebank tricks; but they were too much like the old man already described, making a great pretence and doing nothing, so that a momentary glance was all that we gave them. The joss-pidgin seemed to be at a discount in this Vanity Fair, for in the small Temple a few red wax-candles were burning at the shrine, but there was no devotee there save the old man in charge of the place.

We next turned our attention to the old Tea House and its artificial lake! Such a dirty dub of stagnant water to be called an artificial and ornamental lake! The small expanse of filthy water, with a skimming of green weeds on the surface, is enclosed by a wall coming up to the level of the ground round about; the lake, pond, or dub, is about thirty yards square, and in the centre stands the Hu-sing-ting, a public Tea House, which may be called the best and most airy institution of its kind in the City, as it is in a comparatively isolated position; but still there is nothing very refreshing in its situation,-the surrounding stagnant and fetid water makes its position little better than if it was in a small street with cook-houses on every side of it. The Tea House is approached by a long and zig-zag viaduct, which we were told was built fifteen hundred years ago; each pier is composed of two columns of grey granite, standing about three feet apart; on their top is laid transverse block, and from it to a similar block, on the next pier, three huge slabs of the same everlasting rock are laid, forming a narrow pathway; the whole bridge being provided with low railings of strong woodwork, which must have been a work of more modern days. Granite blocks also form the foundations on which the Tea House is built, but the house is not nearly so old as the bridge. This Tea House is a fair specimen of Chinese architecture, but only on a small scale; it covers a very limited area, and rises to the height of two storeys, surmounted by a highly ornamental roof; in the 1 wer apartment there is nothing but windows between the supporting pillars, the