in scholastic
times, in European institutions and in religious communities, men kept
silence at their meals, yet the hours were enlivened by one who read
for the edification of all. The interchange of thought, however,--the
spoken word one with another, at the family table, is the better way.
Silence may be golden, but speech is more golden if seasoned with
wisdom; and even the pleasant jest and the _bon mot_ have their office
and exercise a salutary influence on character and conduct.

The food of Chinamen generally is very simple. Rice is the staple
article of consumption. They like fruits and use them moderately. They
eat things too, which would be most repulsive to the epicurean taste
of an Anglo-Saxon. Even lizards and rats and young dogs they will
not refuse. But these things are prepared in a manner to tempt the
appetite. After you have partaken of your repast in the Chinese
Restaurant, if you request it, tobacco pipes will be brought in, and
your waiter will fill and light them for you and your friends. You can
even, with a certain degree of caution, indulge in the opium pipe, the
joy of the Chinaman. As you draw on this pipe and take long draughts
you lapse into a strange state, all your ills seem to vanish, and you
become indifferent to the world. The beggar in imagination becomes
a millionaire, and for the time he feels that he is in the midst
of courtly splendours. But, ah! When one awakes from his dream the
pleasures are turned into ashes, and the glory fades as the fires
of the pipe die. _Sic transit gloria mundi_! On the walls of the
restaurant were various Chinese decorations. The inevitable lantern
was in evidence. Here also were tablets with sentences in the language
of the Celestials. But there was one thing that struck me forcibly as
I examined the various objects in the rooms. In the rear half of the
restaurant, on the north side of the room, stood a Chinese safe,
somewhat in fashion like our ordinary American safe. It was not,
however, secured with the combination lock with which we are all
familiar. It shut like a cupboard, and had eight locks on a chain as
it were. Every lock represented a man whose money or whose valuables
were in the safe. Each of the eight men had a key for his own lock,
different from all the other seven. When the safe is to be opened all
the eight men must be present. Is this a comment on the honesty of
the Chinaman? Is this indicative of their lack of confidence in each
o