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GLIMPSES INTO CHINESE HOMES.

highest ministers of state have been compelled to yield to her authority. The Emperor himself was obliged to yield her the highest homage by performing the ceremony of nine prostrations before her on stated occasions.

The various departments of the court are under a board of directors. They attend upon the sacrifices and superintend the household. The internal arrangements are conducted with much ceremony and system. Elaborate etiquette controls all official intercourse.

In the Hwui Tien, a Chinese work containing descriptions of life at court, the menus of the Emperor and Empress are thus recorded: "There shall daily be placed before the Emperor thirty pounds of meat in a basin, and seven pounds boiled in soup; hog's fat and butter, of each one and one-third pound; two sheep, two fowls, and two ducks, the milk of eighty cows, and seventy-five parcels of tea. Her Majesty receives twenty-two pounds of

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