The purpose of the long nails, dwarfed feet and heavy hairdressing is the snobbish one of showing that such a person does not need to work, but can afford to keep servants. These devotees of fashion, rapidly becoming fewer, suffer so much torture that their conceit can be forgiven them. “Don’t say a word, you Westerners; remember your suffocating waists and your high-heeled compressed shoes,” retort some of the Chinese! At Ningpo boys wear boots made of human hair. Over these they draw straw sandals. For waterproof material an oiled cotton is used. The very poor classes use a picturesque cape and kilt made of rush leaves, and one sees sights on the mountain roads of Hongkong that remind one of Robinson Crusoe and Friday. The Chinese are great bird fanciers. Crows, magpies, hawks, larks, ducks, finches, etc., are exposed for sale in the fairs. The singing birds are taught to sing in competition, and also to catch seeds thrown into the air. Fortune-tellers take up their location at the street corner in Hongkong, Canton, and other ports, with their trained Kwangtung sparrows. When you pay your coin, the owner places a package of cards in envelopes before the door of the cage. The bird selects one and is rewarded with a grain of rice. You identify the card by the picture that it bears. The owner puts the card, together with a tiny slip of sandalwood, back in the envelope, shuffles the envelopes and calls the bird out again. The bird will select the same envelope, which proves that Kwangtung sparrows at least have a fine sense of smell! On another corner stands a bird trainer with a grossbeak-weaver perched upon his finger. He throws coins into the air, toward which the bird darts, catching the coins in its bill and returning to the finger of the master. On the narrow streets, in constant danger of being jostled into, the letter-writer sits at a table, painting the beautiful characters for whomsoever wishes to buy a letter. His customers are many,--fruiterers, laborers, fishermen, cooks, gunny-lifters, hotel-runners, lantern sellers, rice bird hawkers, etc. The Buddhist or Taoist priest, too, is not averse to writing a letter for a wife buyer for an added fee after his customer has bought a written prayer to Buddha or his own dead father, which prayer the priest burns in presenting it to the spirit. There are many Mohammedan Chinese in the western and southwestern provinces, and scattered throughout the empire are Mohammedan companies. They are generally butchers and bakers by occupation. Among these Mohammedans are doubtless the lost colonies of Chinese Jews.