by the city authorities. He also has the power of life and death over his beggarly subjects, and punishes all offences committed by them.

The Beggar Chief is a regular attendant at the marriage ceremonies and funeral processions of private families in order to get his pay for keeping away his hungry crowd of beggars, who otherwise would hinder the festival or procession in a disagreeable noisy way.

I was told that the Beggar Chief of Soochow has an income of about 15,000 dollars a year. The billet of the one in Shanghai city is worth about 5000 dollars. Most storekeepers have an agreement with the Beggar Chief to keep his "staff" away. They pay about one dollar a year each, and in return for this trifling amount the chief gives a printed receipt to the storekeeper, which the latter pastes on his door, to the effect that he has paid his tax and is exempt from the demands of beggars.

There are different kinds of beggars. I think it will be appropriate to commence with the Imperial beggars, or Lao yen ting (the words mean "old man's button "). They have probably no parallel in the world, as some of them are descendants of the ancient Ming dynasty, or distantly related to the present reigning Imperial House. They are scattered all over the country, are said to number upwards of 10,000, and are specially numerous in Peking.

Imperial beggars are easily recognised because they are allowed to wear garments of the imperial yellow, of different shades. Characters are painted in black on the back and front of their robes to denote their profession. They wear either a straw hat or a velvet cap ornamented with a brass button. When first I saw them, I took them to be old degraded officials, for there are hundreds of them in Soochow. They carry a wooden bell in their hands to announce their arrival. As a rule they are over sixty years of age, and have no family to support them, and they are all allowed to beg for more money than the ordinary craft, and are furnished with a licence from the magistrate. They are, of course, too aristocratic to be under the rule of the ordinary Beggar

Chief. In Nanking there is quite a select company of them, the order having been instituted as far back as the Ming dynasty. Hung Wů, the founder of the Ming dynasty, was once a beggar himself. The rise from beggar to Emperor probably beats the record of any dynasty in Europe. In pious remembrance of his former profession, Hung Wŭ instituted this order. At present they live in certain caves or recesses that are

made in the city wall. The largest of these recesses is forty feet long by twenty feet wide; the inmates are very comfortably lodged, and are decently dressed, but they are addicted to opium-smoking. Besides seeking alms, these imperial beggars go about the country and obtain a livelihood by swearing false oaths in Court. Their oaths are considered as binding and sacred, so they are often much sought after; because for a few taels one can get such a beggar to swear an oath which' always decides the case. The magistrates are liable to pay the imperial beggars an allowance every year, but it is said they often forget to do so, as they know well that these beggars are not in want. I obtained a native drawing

of two of these Lao yen ting, who, I was told, were descendants of the Ming dynasty. They form an admirable example of the craft.

Now we descend in the scale to the ordinary beggars. These are divided into grades. First there are the literary beggars, who are, as a rule, outcasts from the middle. or even from the upper classes-those who, when young, could not or would not learn, or when put into business were not sharp enough, or such as had no taste. After repeated failures they are driven away from the parental home to shift for themselves. They do not like to be reckoned amongst the beggars, as they possess enough education to read and write. They are always provided with paper, pen and ink, and they go from shop to shop, undertake jobs of writing, and draw characters for signboards. They have no comforts. Their chief pleasure, as a Chinaman said of them, is to sit down and eat what they can afford, rice, dried fish, salt, and vegetables.

Then there are beggars who come out with their whole families, and kneel down in busy places. They have a written piece of paper that tells their misfortune. Very often they have been robbed (!) on their way while they were trying to find a relative-who is a Mandarin somewhere. When they have collected sufficient money in a town or village, they disappear for a few weeks.

Then there are desperate beggars. They learn the trade before they are allowed to join the gang. If they are refused alms at a shop they do some mischief by breaking and damaging goods. This class is the most feared, as they are the lowest and roughest lot imaginable.

In Shanghai city there are said to be about five thousand all classified under the name of beggars, who have five head men to look after them. One is the chief, and the four others are his assistants. Each has his district, North, South, East, and West. The guild have their laws, which govern the whole body. Although poor, they profess an enviable contentedness in which no nation in Europe equals them. They "work" some sixteen

hours a day, and enjoy themselves in their fashion. They never want shelter. The numerous temples and pagodas hospitably give them space.

Should any one have the misfortune to be reduced to beggary, the first thing he has to do is to have his name

registered at the guild. After that he is put to beg in a certain district, and he is trained to act in his art of begging. If he does not conform to the rules laid down, he is punished by corporal discipline. Every month the chief collects from each beggar from two hundred to four hundred cash, equal to from twenty to forty cents, according to the circumstances of the man and the district in which he is begging.

Round about the Longwa Pagoda there were always heaps of beggars, and for years one might daily meet a mysterious beggar dressed in rags and tatters made up of different materials, silk, wool, and cotton, all of different colours, red, blue, white and yellow predominating. He moved about slowly with a big stick, smiling and grinning, but no one knew whence he came, and he never gave an answer to questions To me he appeared dumb. He did not belong to any guild.

Again, the chief has his responsibilities when the rainy weather sets in or the cold winter is at hand. He has to take good care of his subjects, and must distribute rice or money, as may be deemed necessary.

There is quite a colony of beggars who live in boats, and pick up their living from the innumerable vessels, floating houses, and rafts on the rivers and canals. They gave me the impression of having the hardest life of all, and were often nothing but skin and bone. I introduce to my readers an average specimen of a beggar who confines his métier to the water.

In the temples, which always consist of a complexity of buildings and courtyards, there is plenty of room for beggars and loafers, and it was in one of these that I came upon the only centenarian I saw in China. I at once took the opportunity of having the old man photographed. His sight had gone, but his hearing had been sharpened to make up for the loss. When he heard the coins and felt them in his bony hands, he was greatly delighted, and greeted me with "Chin-chin."

CARL BOCK.