visit this bazaar of an afternoon with the sole object of buying
a few of these little birds for two or three cash each and then
letting them fly away, a beatific smile betraying the salve to inward
feelings generated by a knowledge of merit acquired, any miseries
inflicted on the sparrows by capture and confinement counting for
nothing in the balance against the good work accomplished by their
purchase and release.

The Chinese ideas of life and death are very dissimilar to our own.

With us, the responsibility of parents for the bringing up and
well-being of the children is paramount, the fulfilment of such
obligations being enforced both by legal and social pressure, while
the responsibility of children for the care of their aged parents is
almost _nil_.

Amongst the Chinese, children are considered to be the absolute
chattels of the parents, with whose treatment of their offspring
neither public opinion nor the country's laws have any right of
interference. Infanticide can be, and undoubtedly is to a certain
extent, practised, while the father is even said to be legally
entitled to punish his grown-up children with death.

Children, on the other hand, are bound by every tie to obey, respect,
support and even worship the authors of their being. Filial duty is
the greatest of all virtues, and the man who fails in this respect is
despised by everyone and takes rank with worthless characters and
outcasts.

Our view of life is very finite. We are born, we die, are relegated to
the unknown and quickly forgotten.

A Chinaman regards himself as a disseverable part of the stream of
life, by which he is borne into this world to live his life here, and
then is borne on again to the abode of departed spirits without
continuity of existence having been interrupted. At his death he is
mourned with a whole-hearted sincerity by his entire family, who
perform the obsequies with great respect and as much display as is
compatible with their station in life. An imposing grave is built in a
spot facing a pleasant prospect, while trees are planted, and
sometimes even artificial pieces of water made, so that the
disembodied spirit may be able to enjoy shady groves and cooling
breezes. Sacrifices are offered at this shrine not once, but year
after year, and by his children's children, with an absolute certainty
of the spirit's existence and approving knowledge. This is the
practice of ancestral worship, and greatly to be pitied is