Branksome Hall - Slogan Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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THE BRANKSOME SLOGAN. 19 Among the points of interest on the island, shown to the tourist, are the DevlFs Hole, where two thousand different kinds of fish are kept for the pleasure and education of the spectator; the Crystal Cave, a lovely and interesting place; the Aquarium, and the Coral Reefs. There are two lighthouses on these islands, St. David ' s and Gibbs, the latter being 370 feet above the sea. The scenic artist, the amateur photographer, the bicyclist, and all health and rest seekers will find Bermuda one of the fairest spots on old Mother Earth. Land of gorgeous days, whose air and sunshine are like wine and l alm, of nights, whose moonlight and whose .starlight seem of heiavenly origin, land of ever-changing glorious tints of sea and sky, land of perpetual spring, who would not, when the rigors of northern winters imprison our less favored clime in bonds of ice and snow, hie himself to thy flower-bedecked verdant shores, there to bask in the sunshine of thy days and luxuriate in the soft radiance of thy nights? THE NEW YEAR IN CHINA BY DORA ADAMS. In the Celestial Empire, the time of the New Year festival is the greatest holiday of the twelve moions. To the Chinese it means fifteen days of feasting, family reunion and new clothes. They have plenty of time for religious rites and social ceremonies. It is a fortnight of national leisure, and, strange to relate, one in which all debts are expected to be paid. You might wonder how such industrious people as the Chinese find time for such lengthy festivities; but just as we take Sunday as a rest day, so their whole nation oboo ' ses that this full half -moon, from New Year ' s Day to the Feast of the Lanterns, shall be spent in social enjoyment. Dumplings are connected with their Xew Year, just as the turkey and plum pudding with an English Christmas. To eat cakes of ordinary grain on New Year ' s Day, land no dumplings, is almost worse than to have no New Year. The keen joy with which every member of the family anticipates the New Year feast, the still keener joy of devouring it, and the scarcely . smialler pleasure of reminiscence after the return to plain fare brightens life for all. Inspired probably by the same spirit which prompts Western New Year ' s resolutions, the Chinese choose this particular time to house- clean. They clean their mud floors, build new walks, if needed, buy new wall-hangings, put new colored paper on the windows, which

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18 THE BRANKSOME SLOGAN. The Bermudas consist of 365 islands, but there are not more than fifteen land areas large enough to hear the name island ' and to be inhabited or under cultivation. The two cities are Hamilton and St. George ' s, with low land called the Flats connecting them. The natives are clean, hard-working negroes and ver} religious. There has been no record of any crime for the last twenty-five years, which speaks well for their peaceful- ness. There, children go regularly to school, and on Sunday you will see them all dressed up in their best, the women in stiff white dressefe and the children with their frizzy hair done up in numerous pig- tails. Most of the negroes are farmers and sow celery and easter- lilies, also vegetables, and of course you see banana plantations on all sides. There realh are but two yearly seasons in Bermuda, spring and summer. Flowers are most beautiful and plentiful in the so-called winter months. The planter is busy sowing and reaping just when his more northern brother is shovelling out snow and shovelling in coal. Frost has never been seen here. From November to April the mercury ranges from 50 to 70 degrees, with but very few days Avhen artificial heat is needed. In summer it is never so high as in the States, never rising above 86 degrees, and 75 to 80 degrees at night. Grass is green, flowers bloom, trees and shrubs flourish all the year round. There are two banks, and American money circulates freely. The spiritual interests of the colony are ministered to by able pastors representing seven denominations, with the Church of England at the head. There are no steam cars, no cars of any kind, no factories, no snakes or wild animals, but plenty of birds and flshes. We may be thankful that there is a place devoted to pure air, bright sun- shine and delightful repose and exempt from frogs. The roads are cut out of the solid rock, consequently they are very hard, without dust and as white as snow. The houses are built only one-storey high out of the same native stone with lime roofs. The roofs and the houses are kept exceedingly clean, as they depend on the rain for their water supply. The navy docks are built on the west side of the islands, and there are about five or six thousiand soldiers stationed there the year round. The Governor of the Bermudas is General Kitchener, and his term extends five years. The liotels and stores are all similar to our own stores, the Hamilton and the Princess being the two best hotels. The Princess closes in the summer, but the Hamilton and the Frascati, another good hotel, remain open the year round. The drives are beautiful and the scenery a constant pleasure to the tourist.

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20 THE BEANKSOME SLOGAN. are made of fine lattice-work, making everything as fresh as the} can afford. In the Western countries family gatherings are desirable, but difficult. Families divide and scatter to the ends of the earth. But in China the family is already at home. Only a few of its male members are away, and these re turn for this holiday; for if a Chinaman cannot go home for the New Year he is sure to be ridiculed by the people with whom he is staying las well as by those of his native village. So, dreading ridicule even more than the loss of a meal, if kept away by something over which he has no control, he is like a wet hen or a fish out of water. There is a noticeable absence of the old clothes during the time between the first and fifteenth days of the new moon. Glad rags for every man, woman and child, even though some be rented ! They love bright colors, and so a combination of bright green, scarlet, orange and purple would look magnificent on a Chinaman, and be considered quite in good taste. The debt-paying function occupies the last day of the old year. Some Chinese truisms are : Everybody needs to borrow, Every- body is obliged to lend money (almost everybody oweis money to someone else) , No Chinaman ever pays down cash unless he is obliged to do so, No Chinaman ever pays a debt until he is dunned and dunn ' ed often. Further, in paying a debt, he pays but part of it at a time. It is easily seen, then, that the collecting machinery is necessarily intricate. Each store, no matter how small, has its own army of men to gather in its debts. At the same time these men collect their own debts, and, while collecting, endeavor to dodge their own creditors. They are at once the most practical and most sentimental of the human race. New Year must not be violated by duns for debts, but the debt must be collected. New Year though it be. For this rea- son one sometimes sees an urgent creditor going about early on the first day of the year, carrying a lantern, looking for some one. This artificial light shows that, by a social fiction, the sun has not yet risen, it is still yesterday and the debt can still be claimed. New Year ' s Eve and lall through the night there is a great deal of banging of firecrackers, to delight their own ears and scare away the evil spirits . On the twenty-third day of the previous month, the old Icitchen god had been discharged and now they install a new one in its place. On the second day all the male members of a suitable age go to tlie family or clan graveyard, and there make offerings to the spirits of their ancestors.