Clippings.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 104, 5 February 1901, Page 4

Clippings.

HOW THE! MANCHUS CAMS INTO CHINA.

A bright-coloured cloud of legend hangs over the origin of the Manchu line and the Long White Mountain which was the scene ol the miraculous birth of the projenitor of the dynasty,' "On the blessed"moantain," to quote a passage from the Emperor Kenlung's poetic version of the story, " a celestial virgin, a daughter of heaven, tastod a fruit to which she was attracted by it?brightness, ate, conceived, and became the mother oir/a boy, heavenly like hsrse'f." The divine child .became a king and reigned in Odoli city in the desert' of Ohomi—a locality which travellers and historians have hitherto been unable to identify—and two centuries later we find his descendant Nurchachu taking a field and vowing 200,000 Chinese heads as a funeral obiation to the spirits of bis father and grandfather, who had fallen in a quarrel in which the Chinese Warden of the Mancbua had sided with the enemy. The boundaries of die Manchu btate expanded rapidly. T ; IGIB N-.:4tl"h----chu defeated tLdi'o huge Chinese armies, and in 1621 ho captured Mukden. He carried the capital of Laotung by escalade, and that event fixes the date of a fashion which is generally regarded as characteristically and. immemorially Chinese—werring of the " Pigtail; " for 'such of the townspeople as were favorable to him were orderid to shave the front of the head and adopt the Macchurosene as a distinguishing sign. This was .observed in subsequent campains, und it appears to be almost the . only permanent ehanco which the conquerors have impressed on the millions they sub-jugated. They found the "golden liliies" or, crushed feet of the Chinese women, and probably wen; not concerned to eradicate the cruel and pernicious custom, but "no woman with crushed fesl may enter the Impi-ri.-il Court, " and the Manchu woman, long-robed, tall, and splendid, " walks with sturdy tread freely on her full-grown feet." The manners and customs of the old invaders, the simple and manly, if occasionally rude and semi- barbarous, traits of the stout lighting man, have, it is sai 1, been conquered; they hr'.ve lost their alphabet, which if imposed on China might have been an incalculable benefit to the Empire; even the language of Nurchachu has ceased to be spoken by the latest of his line; and indeed Manchuria itself is Chinese rather than Manchu. A few years ago the population of Manchuria was set down at twenty millions, but the Manehus themselves, all tribes including, were estimated by Mr James in his book on "The Long White Mountain" at less than a million, and of that small proportion less than 1 per cent spoke Manchu tongue. As the conquerors advanced into the south, Manchuria was depleted to garrison the Flowery Laud, an.. ..h Chinese immigrants streamed into theic empty places.—Good Words.

WEDDING THAT COST £20,000. The wedding of Louis Pierpont Morgan, daughter of Pierponfc Morgan, the well-known financier and multi-millionare, to Herbert Livingstone batfcerlee, which took place at St. George's Church, New York, recently, was one of the most brilliant social events of the year.

The church was packed, fully a billion dollars being represented among the 2500 invited guests. The bride wore a superb Worth gown of whito satin covered with d'Alencon. Dr Rainford officiated.

The ceremony was followed by a reception at the Morgan Mansion, in Thirty-Sixth Street. The floral decorations in the church and residence surpassed anything before witnessed in New York. Orchids, roses, and tropical flowers were used with lavish profusion. The wedding cake weighed nearly a--quarter of a ton.

Enormous crowds sstrounded the church,. police services being needed to kcsp order. The bride received 400 presents of gold and silver, plate, jewellery, etc., estimated to be worth £20,000. Mr Morgan presented his daughter with a diamond tiara, collar, and corsage of fabulous value, and a country house adjoining his estate on Hudson River.

The bride's trousseau, v.l.:eh cost |a fortune, includes sevvral gowns I trimmed with cloth of gold, jprecious.. stones, and the rarest antique laces. The total cost of tho wedding is estimated at over £20,000. The bridegroom has no fortune. He is a member of a New York law firm, belongs to one of the old Dutch families, and is a nephew of Dr. Satterlee, Bishop of Washington.