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J. NACKEN
answer the purpose. The diamond gimlet especially is a treasure which is not known in Europe. Besides glass and China this simple looking spectacled old man will repair foreign umbrellas, clasps, and hinges, and mark China-ware. Another carries women's toilet boxes with him, which he exchanges for old ones if they are past mending. A third sharpens razors and whets scissors; then come the travelling smith, the cobbler, the tinker; one who hoops tubs and basins, and finally the repairer of mats.
In passing we may notice the familiar warning cry of our chairbearers 'Mái 'pin* “step aside,” and of the coolies in carrying loads 'T'ai keuk† or 'Hoi lot “look to your footing,” "clear the road!” and then pass on to hear a few cries in connection with idolatry. Here is the hawker of joss paper, of incense sticks and of candles; there is a table, a chair and a picture of a man's head; a shrewd looking Chinaman has a crowd of eager listeners gathered around him, whilst with his persuasive tongue he tells his fortune to the one who for a few cash has engaged his services. He is a sort of phrenologist. His brother fortune-teller who has his stand at the next corner pretends to read a future happy fate by the lines of his customer's hand. Sometimes you may see an elderly woman with an open umbrella pacing along the sidewalk. Sün meng§ she calls out into the houses. Her prophesying apparatus consists of two tortoise shells. A happy day for a family festival or a felicitous name for a child she is sure to find. And if a child be sick she knows that the little one's spirit has been frightened away by a cat or a dog or something else. She will bargain for some twenty cash, take the child's jacket, light a fire in the street and call the frightened spirit back. After the jacket has been put on the child, the spirit is supposed to have taken up again its former abode within;
and our last street crier walks on.
**
埋邊
千睇脚
L
I BALAS
§ to calculate destinies.