A Professional Story-teller.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 33, 19 January 1884, Page 5

A Professional Story-teller.

At one end of the market (of Hong Kong) was a crowd gathered round a man ay ho, seated on a stool, Avas evidently reciting or reading something. I found he was a professional story-teller, and that ho was engaged just then in the narration of the troubles of a mandarin's daughter, who, captured with her father by some rebels, went through a series of terrible adventures, but who finally, by her singular courage, released herself and her father, and brought the head of the arch rebel to the Emperor. The reader or rather reciter was a man of middle age, and of very respectable appearance. He held a fan in his hand, and his nails were very long, to indicate his gentility. I Avas" told he was a very clever man, Avho could, if he liked, talk in a dialect that the common people could not understand, but that he was now speaking in Cantonese, and with great skill. It was evident that, as the story progressed, he laid hold upon the feelings of his audience, for as he dwelt on the sufferings of the damsel, and wept copiously himself at the offspring of his own imagination, the people all round mingled their tears with his and showed signs of the deepest emotion. These people Avould probably have looked callously on had they seen a eh! in the position he described, but so fervent Avas his eloquence and so great his skill that they could not help weeping at the pictured tragedy. As for the orator himself, he Avould lower his voice and whisper, then, springing up, Avould shout out an impassioned sentence, relapsing once more into quietude as the tale went on. A magnificent actor, forgetting himself wholly in the interest of his tale, he he d his hearers enthralled for more than two hours, for I noAv and again returned, only to find him unexhausted, and his audience unsatiated. While he spoke itinerant vendors of tea, peanuts, and sweetmeats permeated the croAvd, doing a comfortable trade, and now and then one or other of the listeners Avould put down a few cash at the feet of the orator. On the whole, he appeared to be pretty well remunerated for his trouble, the people being only too glad to have such a treat as his imagination afforded them.

A young lady and her escort were returning from watching an archery meeting the other day. " Would you .not like to have a bow?" asked the pwain. "If 1 1 1 had one, I should prefer yew t " she answered, archly. It is recorded as a noteworthy fact that no declarations of insolvency were filed in ( Dunedin last week. What is the difference between a muscular tramp and anewly-oleaned lamp?— --Only .this— one, is a well-Urabed tramp, and the other is a weU-trimmed lamp, " '