The relatives and friends of the family now are expected to make a present in money to the child, each according to his ability or station, the sums varying from one to eighty pieces of silver (60 cents to $48), so that the newly-shorn youngster will on these occasions receive enough to give him quite a start in the world or if a maiden sufficient for a dowry. And now a general feasting ensues, the yellow-clad priests being first served, and for a day or two more the music and theatrical performances continue. After this the children are reckoned as young men and young women. The _kone-chook_ is in fact their “coming-out” festival. Those whose poverty will not allow the expense of such an affair take their child when it arrives at the proper age to a Buddhist temple, and have a priest shave off the tuft with some simple religious ceremony. If so much is made of this observance in the case of ordinary children, the celebration of the first hair-cutting of a young prince or princess, as may well be imagined, is a very grand affair. It is then styled a _sokan_. Preparations for it commence months beforehand; the governors of provinces far and near are summoned to be present; the highest priests in the kingdom are invited; and public festivities, with free theatres, shadow-plays, rope-dancing, etc., to amuse the immense crowds of people present, are kept up for many days. If the child prince or princess is of the very highest rank, part of the ceremony takes place on an artificial mountain constructed in the court of the palace of strong timberwork and boards, covered so entirely with sheets of pewter gilded that it appears like a beautiful mountain of gold. The one erected a few years ago for the _sokan_ of the eldest daughter of the reigning king――she being also a great grand-daughter of the ex-regent――the princess Sri Wililaxan, was sixty feet high (higher than a four-story building), and had cliffs here and grottoes there, and lakes and waterfalls, and trees with artificial monkeys and birds and serpents, which by concealed machinery were made to move among them as if alive, and winding paths that led to the top, where an elegant gilt pavilion gleamed in the sun. The ceremonies on this occasion commenced with the chanting of prayers in the hall of state at the palace by twenty-four head priests of the chief temples of the city, and the lighting of “the candle of victory,” a huge wax candle six feet high, which burned day and night till the moment the hair was cut. The next morning these same priests were sumptuously feasted at the palace, and dismissed with presents of priests’ robes, cushions, fans, etc., and another company took their place.