Now, many of the sources of amusement that are open to the people of the West have no existence in this country whatever. They have no Sunday on which they can lay aside the eternal round of work, and forget for one day that life is a treadmill which never stops its grinding. There are no stated holidays, when people rush off to the seaside or to the moors or to some fishing stream, where midst the hills they can forget the heat and pressure of the city. The legislators of China have never dreamed that any one needed a vacation. The school-boys, indeed, after eleven months of cramped school life have been thought worthy of a month's holidays at the end of the year, but the grown-up people have to work. Without that, large sections of the community under present conditions would starve. The most serious thing of all, however, is the illiterate character of the people. It has been reckoned by competent critics that only ten, or at the most fifteen, millions out of the four hundred can read. The result is that, excepting in the houses of the favoured few, there are no books or magazines or pictures, or, in fact, literature of any kind in the vast majority of the homes into which one may enter. What this means for the young people, full of restlessness and with an immense fund of animal spirits, may be more easily imagined than understood. In their idle hours or during the dark nights of winter, they are thrown upon their own resources, and as these are extremely limited, it is no wonder that the young fellows take to the only things that they can think of to while the hours away, and that is gambling and opium smoking. Of course, for the nation at large, these two forms would not meet the demand there is in human nature for some sources of amusement that shall be harmless. There are troops of children, in this land so prolific in little ones, who have to be amused with laughter and smiling faces, and feasts, and outings on the hills, and visits to relatives. There are equally large numbers of young girls, who must have the monotonous life in which they are compelled to live in their narrow homes changed from the unending routine that confronts them almost every day of their lives. In order to satisfy this demand for recreation, there are certain forms of amusement that have become popular throughout the country, and which, to a limited extent, do meet the needs of the case. They may be roughly divided into two classes. The first of these is the great festivals, that are religiously observed by the people of the whole Empire. The most important amongst these is the New Year's holiday. The feasting and jollity really extend over three days, though, as is natural, it is the first one that stands out the most conspicuous of them all.