The books of the vendor are usually covered with a kind of pasteboard of a green or yellow colour. Those kept in shops are generally bound in red brocade, adorned with flowers of gold and silver, and have their titles in gold letters, not on their backs, but on the exterior surface of the cover. Some works are splendidly illustrated, after the Chinese manner, by designs in colours, and others by rude but very graphic wood-cuts. The paper which the Chinese use for printing, being extremely thin, is printed only on one side. The sheets are so folded that the two open edges go to the back when they are stitched. Thus the Chinese books are cut in the back (not in the front like ours), and the sheets are then held together by a silk lace, or merely a strip of paper twisted between the fingers. The Chinese have a variety of books, and no nation in the world can boast of such a mass of historical annals. The people are amused with a variety of the vilest trash, and there are published in quick succession, dramas, poems, and tales, some serious and some comic, but none of any great merit. They have also plays, and strange representations of various kinds, but, for the most part, of a gross or whimsical nature. The Chinese are particularly fond of puppet shows, which they have brought to a great degree of perfection, with various automatons, like our “Punch and Judy.” All ranks take delight in these amusements. I hope in my next Annual to give you some further insight into the manners and customs of this most interesting people. Jack and Jill. “Jack and Jill Went up the hill, To fetch a pail of water:— Jack fell down And broke his crown, And Jill came tumbling after.”