Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1893 — Traveling at Night in China. [ARTICLE]

Traveling at Night in China.

In traveling at night in China everyone uses a torch or lantern. Ordinary business men use a small glass and tin affair, which they swing as they walk. The well-to-do and the mandarins emt ploy the globes already described. Two of them are usually fastened to the back of the traveller’s sedan chair as a part of its furniture. At night they are carried by a servant who goes in advance. As a rule, the higher a man’s social standing the larger his lanterns. If he has a title it is painted on their surface in characters so large as to surround the. light. A titled lantern takes the right of way over a plain one, and as between titles, the higher precedes the lower. The onlyexception is that a “joss-lantern,” or one belonging to a religious procession, take? precedence over all others.