The moral Chinese stage sets forth not only the reward of virtue, but also the punishment of vice. There can be seen on the Peking stage almost any day a warning to cruel husbands called “Pang Ta Pao Ch’ing Lang” (Beating the Heartless Husband). Mu Chi was a scholar holding the first degree (_Hsiu Tsai_, corresponding somewhat to our A.B.), but he was very poor because his parents had not left him any property whatsoever. When a famine struck the country he was forced to beg for his bread. In his half-starved condition he was one day caught in a snowstorm, in the course of which he fell to the ground more dead than alive. In this condition the daughter of the head of the beggar’s guild found him lying before the door of her home. She took pity on him and nursed him back to health. At first her father was none too pleased with his daughter’s action; but when the daughter represented that the gods would surely reward her good deed, he became reconciled to the presence of the young man in the house. The daughter fell in love with her protégé and was very proud of his rank as a _Hsiu Tsai_. The father also became quite fond of the young man and gave him his daughter in marriage. Then it was arranged that Mu Chi was to go to Peking to take the examination, while his wife and father-in-law were to go along to beg and thus furnish the young man with a living until such time as he should have secured a profitable post. Mu Chi passed the examination and was appointed the magistrate of a town. The moment he had received his appointment he became extremely disdainful of his new relatives and in the course of the journey by boat to the town where he was to become magistrate he pushed his wife overboard into the stream and drove off his father-in-law. However, a certain high official saved the life of the beggar chief’s daughter and adopted her as his child. When he had learned from her the story of her husband’s ingratitude he decided to punish the wretch properly. He called on him in his magistracy and offered him his daughter in marriage. Mu Chi, the cad, naturally was glad to marry into the family of such an influential man, and accepted eagerly. But what was his chagrin and fright when on the evening of his marriage he raised the bride’s veil to find under it the beggar’s daughter! The official then entered the bridal chamber with a powerful stick and ordered the beggar’s daughter to give Mu Chi a sound thrashing. This she did with a great deal of “heart”, as the Chinese say, for which no one can blame her. But Mu Chi decided to become a wiser and a better man; he sent out men to find his father-in-law, and the three lived happy ever after.