Movable scenes are not used, and the most infantile devices are used when a rapid change is necessary; a general having to depart on a distant expedition, mounts a hobby horse, or even a cane, and using a small whip with one hand, imitates riding, (three or four times around the theatre being sufficient) and then, announcing that he has arrived at his destination, goes on with his speeches without any embarrassment. This is but one example of the many where the dramatists draw heavily upon the imagination of their audiences. The actor on entering (in the play) begins by announcing his name and telling the audience why and wherefore he has come; this is done to simplify the following of the action, as in some dramas there are hosts of characters and one player often assumes many _roles_. Such puerility is caused partly by the small size of the stages, which would not admit a host of performers, and partly by the fact that many of the characters in a Chinese play are comparatively unimportant, appearing once, and then vanishing forever; in fact at the end of some of the Chinese dramas, one is considerably mystified as to the fate of many of the characters, as the author, unlike the European and American dramatists, who make everybody (except the villain) happy in the last act, only deems it necessary to follow out closely the career of his hero and heroine, and they being once dead, the other characters are allowed to wind up in a very sudden and, to us, very unsatisfactory manner. The musical part of these dramas is often quite long, and whenever the actor desires to express much feeling, he falls into music. Sometimes it is introduced in a most unnatural manner; in one tragedy, a wife having murdered her husband is sentenced to be _flayed alive_; after the execution of the sentence, she returns to the stage wholly bereft of her skin, (this is depicted with true Chinese realistic effect, the body of the performer being painted in exact imitation of nature in such a hideous plight) and she then and there sings a song to excite the pity of the infernal spirits. The song is full of screeches and howls, and lasts half an hour.[136] Let us not be too hasty in smiling at such absurd stage effects; there is an opera still performed on our own stage, where an innocent Jewess is boiled in oil, as _finale_, and as to the inappropriateness of a long song, under such circumstances, there is a long chorus in a French opera of the last century, where the mayor of the village having fallen into the water, the anxious choristers sing for many minutes, that “he will he drowned unless he is speedily helped out;” decidedly we must not smile too broadly at the Chinese, as yet.