Few children under nine years old are buried, and those only among the richest class. When death occurs, the mother, wailing bitterly, wraps the body in matting, and throws it away, _i.e._ she places it where the dogs can get at it. This ghastly burden must not be carried out of a door or window, but through a new or disused opening, in order that the evil spirit which causes the disease may not enter. The belief is that the Heavenly Dog which eats the sun at the time of an eclipse demands the bodies of children, and that if they are denied to him he will bring certain calamity on the household. I have mentioned the _kang_, which is a marked feature of the houses and inns of Manchuria, which for its latitude has the coldest winter in the world, the mercury often reaching 17° F. below zero. The _kang_ is a brick platform covered with matting and heated economically by flues, and is at once sleeping and sitting place. The stalks of the _Holcus Sorghum_ are used for fuel. In winter, when the external temperature may be a little above and much below zero for a month at a time, the Chinaman, unable to heat his whole room, drops his shoes, mounts his _kang_, sits crosslegged on the warm mat, covers his padded socks with his padded robe, and there takes his meals and receives his friends in comfort. When I was invited to climb the _kang_ I felt myself a _persona grata_. The pawnshops of Mukden, with their high outer walls, lofty gateways, two or three well-kept courts, fine buildings, and tall stone columns at the outer gate, with the sign of the business upon them, their scrupulous cleanliness, and their armies of polite, intelligent clerks, are as respectable as banks with us. They demand for every sum borrowed movable property to double its amount. If the pledge be not redeemed within two years, it falls to the pawnbroker. Government fixes the interest. The proprietor takes the same position as a capitalist owning a bank in the West, and a _samshu_ distiller takes an equal place in local esteem. The prevalence of suicide is a feature of Mukden as of most Chinese cities. Certain peculiarities of Chinese justice render it a favorite way of wreaking spite upon an employer or neighbor, who is haunted besides by the spirit of the self-murderer. Hence servants angry with their masters, shopmen with their employers, wives with their husbands, and above all, daughters-in-law with their mothers-in-law, show their spite by dying on their premises, usually by opium, or eating the tops of lucifer matches! It is quite a common thing for a person who has a grudge against another to go and poison himself in his courtyard, securing revenge first by the mandarin’s inquiry and next by the haunting terrors of his malevolent spirit. Young girls were daily poisoning themselves with lucifer matches to escape from the tyranny of mothers-in-law and leave unpleasantness behind them. But it is not the seamy side which is uppermost in Mukden. FOOTNOTES: