The horse is included in no grouping in Hong Kong, where coolie takes its place as bearer of burdens and hauler of vehicles. The sights of the place are so strange and interesting that a traveler is sometimes there for days before the fact dawns upon his vision that it is a city innocent of horse-flesh. True, there are the runners and polo ponies at Happy Valley race-course. Wherever the Briton plants his abiding-place, there the horse and dog are brought--but in Hong Kong the former requires a deal of attention, for it is only used in making a Briton's holiday. The race-course is set in an intervale, and has cemeteries overlooking grand-stand and entrances. A transplanted sportsman whose every effort to name a winning steed at a Happy Valley meeting has failed signally, finds superabundance of food for introspection as he runs the gauntlet of cemetery portals on the way back to the city, and very likely indulges in mental speculation as to the purpose in giving the name of Happy Valley to a race-track whose betting ring is overshadowed by burial grounds. The "chit" as a moral pitfall is more potent in Hong Kong than in India or other Eastern lands possessing a sprinkling of Europeans. A newcomer's ears hear little but "chit." Every sentence uttered by friends, every proposal of obsequious native merchant, is freighted with the little word. You decide at last to cast off your ignorance and be of the elect--to know what chit means and if possible become a chitter. Very disappointed are you when told that chit is simply Asian for memorandum, in popular phrase, an "I. O. U.," hurriedly penciled and given in lieu of cash. Its purpose? Merely to pander to the European's convenience; to differentiate the white man from brown or yellow, by placing him on the unassailable pedestal of a person of honor. "This chit idea is great," says the newcomer. "I don't load my pockets down with money any more. When I buy a cigar or drink I give a chit, and that's all there is to it. These Eastern people are away ahead of us in more ways than one." And he hourly signs innocent memoranda, because of the convenience. At hotel and club a chit brings what he wants, it sends a basket of flowers to a charming woman, produces suits of clothing that he doesn't need, even pays 'rickshaw and chair coolies.