PECULIARITIES OF THE CHINESE.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 92, 2 November 1878, Page 3

PECULIARITIES OF THE CHINESE.

The sailor will have to tell how many strange anomalies mot his gaze. For example, in launching their junks and vessels they are sent into the water u sideways.” The horseman mounts on the “ right ” side. The scholar, reciting his lesson, “turns Ins back” on his master. Arid if Jack, or, at all events, one of ids superior officers, goes to a 'party, he should not wear light pumps, but as thick solid shoes as he can get : white lead ” is used for “ blacking.” On visits of ceremony you should keep your hat “ on” : and when j’on advance to vour hosts you should close your fists and “ shake hands with yourself.” Dinners commence with sweets and fruits, and “ end ” with fish and soup. White- is the funeral color. You may see adults gravely flying kites, while the youngsters look on ; shuttlecocks are battledorod by the “ heel.” Books begin at the end ; the paging is at the bottom, and in reading you proceed from right to left. The surname precedes the Christian name. The fond mother holds her babe to her nose to smell it—as she would a rose —instead of kissing it. What yarns lie will have to tell of pigtails ! How the Chinese sailor lashes it round Ills cap at sea ; how the crusty pedagogue, with no other rod of correction, will, on -the spur of the moment, lash the refractory scholar with.it; and how, for fun, a wag will tie two or three of his companions’ tails together, and start them off in different directions ! But he will also know from his own or others’ experiences that the foreigner must not attempt practical jokes upon John Chin-one!!’- - (ail. “ Noli me tangere,” - • ' ’ : - ( ' ■ ni-.-ipv of tiie tail ns ■well as of ‘ he Ihistic.”—‘ The Bead

A Strange Disaster is Husgakv.—Several districts in Hungary weir visji.'d bv a lerribly destructive thunder Arm in tin* night. At Miskolc/. mure than ] 1.00 houses mere destroyed. Over -!00 dead bodies have been rccuvered, ;ind 200 persons were missing. The town of Erl an was also terribly devastated. The waters of the rivulet near Erlau broke through the walls of the town, and whole rows of houses were swept,away and many persons killed. The correspondent of the ‘ Daily Telegraph ’ says the town of Miskolcz is one heap of ruins. What were once the streets and public squares are still bestrewn with disfigured corpses, although a whole regiment and the local fire brigade have been at work for the last two days The remaining inhabitants are in deadly fear of a fresh disaster, the sky being still thickly overclouded. One correspondent writes that words cannot depict the sight that met his eyes on arriving at Miskolcz. The once thrifty commercial town no longer exists. A pile of bricks and mortar now stands in its place. The survivors are almost without exception utterly ruined. The mischief was done, not by an ordinary flood, but by the instantaneous rupture of a colossal waterspout over the very heads of the population. The shock w T as terrific. Furniture was hurled in every direction. The houses reeled for a moment from their basements, and then came down with one tremendous crash. In the village of Mad the greatest damage scorn's to have been done by the flood that followed the breaking of the waterspout. Huge masses of water wore suddenly seen rushing clown the sides of the hills behind the village, like lava vomited by a volcano. The panicstricken inhabitants fled in wild disorder, many of them to meet with death a few yards beyond their thresholds. Forty houses were completely destroyed, and the rest all more or less damaged. The total number of victims is not yet known. The Emperor has sent an aide-de-camp with 5000 florins to relieve the most urgent cases. Animal Intelligence. —Mr Romans, who read the interesting paper on “ Animal Intelligence ” before the British Association in Dublin, to winch we referred last w T oek, has addressed a letter to Wednesday’s ‘ Times ’ to declare his “ matured opinion ” that there is no real distinction of kind between the power winch man has over the order of his thoughts, and the power which the more intelligent of the lower animals have. The only difference is, he says, that the “ intellectual faculties, being more highly developed in man than in animals, supply him with numberless ideas and complex motives for the control of his emotional impulses'—ideas and motives winch are necessarily absent in the case of animals.” Only where does man get the idea of control at all ? It appears to be the “ matured opinion ” of Mr Romans that there is no such thing as cmitrei —that what we mean when we talk ol control is a resultant force, made np of all the motives which act on the mind, hut rather nearer to the superior motive than to the inferior. In this sense, a wind might he said to control the tide which was running against it, or the heat of the sun to control the severity of the cold. If there were no other meaning for “ control ” than this w r e should not need the word. “ Preponderance ” would express what is meant much better than “ control,” while preponderance recognises fully the adverse force, and the influence which it exerts in neutralising part of the energy which exceeds it in amount. Mr Romans and his school have never explained the origin of a class of ideas for the mere existence of which, on their theory, there is no excuse.— ‘ Spectator.’

The Anti-Socialist Bill. —The German Anti-Socialist Bill has been altered, probably rather for the worse. It now provides that the police authorities of the various States, and not the central federal authorities, shall be competent to prohibit Socialist associations. This is a victory for Particularism, and may no doubt, in individual cases, tend to diminish, while in others it may increase, the stringency of the measure. But in any case it will make the responsibility for whatever is done less clear, and concentrate it less on a given point—so that there will be less odium attaching to the use of a power thus distributed, and less hope of swiftly putting - an end to it. It seems also only too probable that the National Liberals and the Progressist party in the new Parliament are quarrelling, and will not unite heartily to oppose this most noxious measure—the effect of which will be to stimulate Socialism tenfold, instead of to suppress it. If you want to weaken the power of rhapsodical dreams on working men’s minds —air them well. If you want to inflame the minds of the poor with them—make it a political crime to indulge them. Prince Bismarck is making the third groat blunder of his life.