China : a history of the laws, manners and customs of the people . to hear someone playing God savethe Queen upon a violin, and on turning aside I fouud that a blindChinese fiddler was the performer. As I was walking away fromhim, he commenced to play the British Grenadiers, and subse-quently I heard him playing the Dead March in Saul. Oninquiring, I was told that he had picked up these airs listeningto the bands of the English regiments which during the late warwith China garrisoned the city of Tien-tsin. The fortune-tellers who draw oracles from words form anotherimportant class of those who
China : a history of the laws, manners and customs of the people . to hear someone playing God savethe Queen upon a violin, and on turning aside I fouud that a blindChinese fiddler was the performer. As I was walking away fromhim, he commenced to play the British Grenadiers, and subse-quently I heard him playing the Dead March in Saul. Oninquiring, I was told that he had picked up these airs listeningto the bands of the English regiments which during the late warwith China garrisoned the city of Tien-tsin. The fortune-tellers who draw oracles from words form anotherimportant class of those who obtain a living by the practice ofsuperstitious arts. Their method of proceeding has beendescribed as follows, by Archdeacon Cobbold in his graphic Pictures of Chinese :— A number of important and significant words are firstselected; each of these is then written upon a separate slip ofthin cardboard which is made up into a roll like those verytiny scrolls of parchment, inscribed with a verse of Scripture,which are used in the present day by the Jews in their. xvn.] FORTUNE-TELLING BY WORDS. 5 phylacteries. These slips of cardboard, amounting altogether toseveral hundreds, are shaken together in a box, and the con-sulting party—moved pei-haps with solicitude to know the resultof an intended expedition or coming engagement in business—repairing to the fortune-teller who is always to be found atsome convenient corner of the street, puts in his hand anddraws from the box one of these scrolls of paper. Themysteries of the art are now displayed; the fortune-teller,writing the signiticant word on a white board which he keeps athis side, begins to discover its root and derivation, shows itscomponent parts, explains where its emphasis lies, what itsparticular force is in composition, and then deduces from itsmeaning and structure some particulars which he applies to theespecial case of the cousulter. ISTo language perhaps possessessuch facilities for diviners and their art, as t
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublisherlondonmacmillan
