seals in China are _red_--to enable tradesmen, officials, and others
to use any kind of paper, whether it has already some red about it or
not; and every foreigner in China would do well to exact on all
occasions the same formalities from his employes as they would
consider a matter of duty towards one of their own countrymen, however
low he might be in the social scale.

[*] Mencius. Book v., part ii., ch. 4.

Certain classes of the people will suffer from the observance of these
ceremonies far more severely than others. The peasant may not have his
head shaved for one hundred days--inconvenient, no doubt, for him, but
mild as compared with the fate of thousands of barbers who for three
whole months will not know where to look to gain their daily rice. Yet
there is a large section of the community much worse off than the
barbers, and this comprises everybody connected in any way with the
theatres. Their occupation is gone. For the space of one year neither
public nor private performance is permitted. During that time actors
are outcasts upon the face of the earth, and have no regular means of
getting a livelihood. The lessees of theatres have most likely
feathered their own nests sufficiently well to enable them to last out
the prescribed term without serious inconvenience; but with us, actors
are proverbially improvident, and even in frugal China they are no
exception to the rule.

Officials in the provinces, besides conforming to the above customs in
every detail, are further obliged on receipt of the "sad announcement"
to mourn three times a-day for three days in a particular chapel
devoted to that purpose. There they are supposed to call to mind the
virtues of their late master, and more especially that act of grace