ILL TEMPER.

HERE are some days, every year in a man's life when he feels himself in a villanous temper. This no doubt chiefly arises from a bad digestion-but it sometimes comes from other sources. In England there is many a man whose disposition is in a general way kindly in the extreme, but who acts as a pest to his household and his friends. When an East wind is blowing, the servant is sure to call him too early or too late, or it may be with "such confounded punctuality." He scalds his chin with his razor and cuts himself into the bargain-the sticking plaster sticks most persistently to his finger instead of to his face. Breakfast is lateor it is so early that it has got cold before he is down. And all this simply because an East wind is blowing.

The climax however is reached when some cheerful friend on the omnibus has the effrontery to be merry, and the despicable villainy to say it is "seasonable weather." This we confess is sufficient to exasperate the most equable temperament in the universe.

Now an East wind in London is only one of the many causes which interfere with the good temper of Englishmen. Fogs of various kinds are a fruitful source of domestic and general quarrels. How can you be civil to your wife when you can't see your own nose for the darkness. How is it possible to praise the cook with the prospect of going into a still gloomier chamber than the one you are already in-and having to meet other individuals whom you know will be in a worse temper than you are in yourself, and with whom you have to transact business. Business! the word on such a day means purgatory, and your senior looms out in your imagination as the presiding genius of that spot.

Then you have the really exasperating fog that does not darken the suburb.

This is the worst of all kinds. You are first made aware of its presence by a choky sensation about the throat, and a smarting one about the eyes.

Your breakfast is accompanied with a sauce of white fog which you fancy must have much the same effect as if you dipped your food in the grey mud of a macadamised road. When you go out of doors the smarting in your eyes increases, and as you near the city, while your eyelids are painful your eyes themselves are distressed with the darkness.

These are some of the few things besides bile which in England affect a man's temper. From all these the exile as he turns his face towards the east considers himself free. The wretched man as he leaves Southampton on a murky day, and thinks with regret of the friends he is leaving behind, hugs that one consolation to his soul. "No more fogs, No more smoke" he keeps expecting to himself and he flatters himself that so long as he can keep his liver in order, he will have no more of that most dreadful of all sensations, the knowledge that he is in a bad temper.

Has he not got rid of all the external causes of irritability? He steams away at full speed but atra cura has stepped on board with him—will go through Egypt with him, and finally land at his destination without once leaving his side. What are the special changes in temperature that affect a man out here, as an East wind does at home, we have not yet been able accurately to determine.

There are other little periodical occurences which have as decided and invariable an effect upon the human constitution in these parts.

An incoming or an Outgoing Mail, for instance.

We wonder how many China boys tremble in their shoes (if they wear them) when they hear the gun that announces the Mail? Who can possibly be expected to be in a good temper when he knows that he has to do any certain amount of work in a definite time? Who can be expected to smile blandly on a friend, or think him anything but a villain of the deepest dye, when his pen is ruining the paper, and his constitution is ruining itself over the paper and everything else at the same time.

A man who can smile during Mail time is only another name for a hypocrite, and the man who expects even civility from others at such a time is simply an ass.

Nevertheless such people there are, just as there are people in London who meet you in an

East wind, and rubbing their fiendish hands, and smiling with a hideous enjoyment inform you that it is " a bracing day!"

Men have been known to arrive in the East, amongst people whom they found were most hospitable amongst old schoolfellows, old college friends-friends of their own, and their relations, and have actually expected some at least of these to be civil to them before the Homeward Mail was written!

These unfortunate and unseasonable beings immediately have a fit of the same distemper which is affecting their neighbours; and now they find that East wind and some one to vent their feelings upon are better than Mails and imperturbable celestials.

They dare not show their ill temper to their fellow countrymen for fear of being set down as disagreeable. They are obliged to bottle up their spleen for fear of irritating their future neighbours. They get more savage in their hearts every day, until, did they speak their minds, they would describe the East as 'a beastly place' and its inhabitants exactly fitted by nature to populate it.

All this because they dare not let off their ill temper. As to abusing the Chinese the most elaborate praise would avail among these people just as much as the most flowery piece of Billingsate Oratory, and their unconcerned faces, and perhaps occasional pleased smile would go far to drive the unfortunate new arrival into a fit.

Again they rush to their writing case, determined to let off their ill temper by writing home such a scarrifying account of the place and its inhabitants as was evidently long deserved but until now, for some mysterious reason, never penned. As they write "My dear mother" or "sister" or "wife," the image of the dear face, half pleased to receive a letter, and half pained at the recollection of the parting being recalled, rises before them and they know why the scarrifying accounts have not been written.

"Why pain them? Why make them doubly miserable both at my absence and my wretchedness." And the pen drops, only to be resumed when long quiet thought of home and the loved faces has calmed the mind, and induced it to think with a little less asperity upon those whose temper has been tried by a more lengthened absence from all that is dear.

There are other things besides Mails however to try a man's temper. 'Depression of trade has a most visible effect in so doing, and the great effect of this cause is immeasurably increased by the opportunity the sufferers have of brooding over their ills. Moreover they now have an opportunity of raking up all sorts of petty grievances and magnifying them until they persuade themselves they are the most illused of mortals. Under these circumstances a man originally in the right allows the epidemic ill-temper to drive him to such extremities that it is difficult for him to discover that he is not the aggriever instead of the aggrieved.

How much more pleasantly would every community get on if the individuals composing it would only remember that a hot day has more to do with the tone of his neighbours' remarks upon him than any ill-will. If we could only conjure upon our minds the picture of ourselves someday, laughing with for more bitterness at the recollection of our past follies, than any neighbour of ours ever does at our present vagaries, how much less should we resent his hilarity-how much more good would it do us.

THE CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS STORY.

Hence unbelieving Sadducees,
And less believing Pharisees,
With systems and Philosophies,
And leave a rustic muse at ease
To play at leap-frog if she please
With children and realities.

KINGSLLY

Y DARLINGS, it was only the other day that I thought what a sin and shame it is that so many numbers of the CHINA MAGAZINE should have come out and there have been never a word for the children. And so I sat down to write you a Christmas story, though I very well know that I can never write one so pretty, so clever, or so sweet as a thousand dear old tales that I should like to put into your hands this Christmas-time, but still I am going to try. All grown up people are hereby warned off these pages unless they can become children too for half an hour, though of course this does not include kind Mammas and Sisters who will read them to you. So now sit down by the fire, for this your own story all to yourselves, and may you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

-Once upon a time, in a far off land, there lived a King and Queen. Their palace stood upon a pleasant hill that was grown all over with groves of trees, and over the tops of them you could just see the towers of the house. Amongst the trees were gardens and lawns, with shady walks that led down to a clear lake below, and all round the level country stretched far away with a beautiful river that ran through it. And from the towers of his Palace the King could see for miles and miles away, villages, a town or two, woods and forests, till he could see no more for the far off hills with peeps of blue sea between. This was his land, and a brave and hardy people lived in it. There were miners and farmers, woodcutters and charcoal-burners in the forest, and the women made butter and spun flax. One thing only seemed to make the land less happy than it might have been. The people said the King and Queen did not care for them, but lived in their grand house only seeking to please themselves and not taking care of their subjects.

So time passed on and after a while two sons were born to the King. I need not tell you their names as I have nothing to say about them. But there was an old nurse called Martha who shook her head and said "I've served in this house forty years and there never was a child born before that the fairy-godmother didn't come. Eh! dear! the old times were the good times. And then the fairy would bring the fairy-ring for the young prince to wear, and while he wore it things went well with him and he could have all that he wished, why don't the fairy come now." So the Queen was very sad and sorry when first one child was born and then another and the fairy-godmother never came.

Then another son was born called Arthur, and though they made a grand

feast and invited all the nobles and rich people, still no fairy came to the Christening. Old Martha did not dare to say that in old times there used to be a feast for the poor too, but perhaps she thought so all the more. But when it was night and all the folks were gone away, the King and Queen sat together in their hall by the fire, and the baby slept in its cradle. They were talking about the fairy and how hard it was that she would not come, when suddenly the room seemed to grow lighter, and a lovely fairy stood before them. She had not come in at the door or the window, but there she was, and she looked at them sternly, as your governess looks at you when you forget the Multiplication Table. "You were talking about she said "what do you want?" "Why will you not come to us as you used to do to the other Kings and Queens?" asked the Queen.

me

"What do you want?" asked the fairy as if she didn't want to talk.

"Will you not do something for our boy-will you not give him the fairy ring?" asked they.

"I will if you like, but it will not bring any joy to you-nor to him either perhaps" she said.

Father and Mother however, protested that they must, would, and should have the fairy ring, and so the fairy stepped to the cradle and looked at the baby. She stooped down and kissed him, and he awoke but did not seem at all frightened. He held out his arms to her, and she seemed pleased and said "When he is ten years old you will find the ring" and she was gone as suddenly as she came. "Ten years! said the Mother, "Who can wait so long as that?" but nothing they could do or say ever brought the fairy back again, and they never saw her again, not even when their fourth and last son was born.

Arthur grew up to be ten years old as most other people do, but the time seemed so long that his parents almost thought they had dreamed about the fairy and that what she said would not come true. It did though, for on his tenth birthday Arthur found on his pillow a ring which fitted him exactly, though no one else could find a finger that it was not too large or too small for. It was a gold ring with a clear stone like a diamond, but what was most strange about it was, that though the stone was not bigger than a pin's head, you could see, on looking into it the picture of a most beautiful lady, which the old nurse said was the fairy's likeness. Arthur used to fancy that sometimes when he was wilful and cross the picture fairy looked sad and stern, but his mother said this was all nonsense.

You know already

Now it is time to tell you what sort of a boy Arthur was. that his Father and Mother were proud and selfish people who did not love those about them. And Arthur's brothers were much the same. Their one thought from morn to night was to please themselves, but of course they never succeeded in doing so. They had nothing to do, and did it, and were very tired of doing it. They thought all the world was made for their pleasure, and that it was every one's duty to amuse them. Now Arthur was different. You never saw more beautiful blue eyes and curling chestnut hair than he had, and better still he had a kind heart. Every one liked him, for he would (before he got spoiled) give up his own way and his own will to please others, and he loved to be kind to those who were in trouble.

This was before he got the fairy ring, but after that I am sorry to say he became rather conceited and silly. His brothers envied him very much, and wanted to wear it, but one could not get it on, and the other lost it, and it was never found for a week, till Arthur went to look for it. So poor Arthur was made so much of both by his father and mother and all the nobles who lived near, that his head was nearly turned, and often he was a very naughty boy, for he began to think himself a person of great consequence, and to order folks about, to give himself airs and have a bad tempers, all of which was very sad indeed, for there is nothing so sad as naughty children. And so of course something happened to him.

When he was about twelve years old there came a flood. The river rose so high that all the flat country was covered with water, and all the houses which were not built on hills or high ground were washed away. Arthur was very sorry for the poor people whose houses and barns were washed down by the flood, and their fields and crops quite spoiled, for though, as I told you, he was getting spoiled very fast, he had a kind heart, and so all day long he watched the waters from the palace windows, and would be always down at the bottom of the gardens by nurse Martha's cottage, which was on the side of the hill, watching the poor people as they tried to save their goods from being floated away. Then he would run home and tell sad tales of their distress, and ask that clothes might be given to this one or food to that one, but his Mamma said it shewed very low tastes on his part to go and mix with the lower classes, and his Father used to take down books from the shelves and read pieces from them (which frightened Arthur dreadfully) shewing how there is nothing so indiscreet, unprincipled, reprehensible, unadvisable or unpolitico-economical (for they used very long words in those books which I hope you will never read) as trying to help poor people, and how the poorer they were the better it was for everybody. Arthur could not argue the point, but he went and tried to help them all the same.

So one day as he stood in the doorway of nurse's cottage where the water almost came up to his feet, he saw coming down on the whirling water a great stack of wood that had been part of a house, and when it came nearer he cried out “Why there's somebody on it, a little girl! O put out the boat, quick, quick!" Some men who were by jumped into a boat to go and save the little girl, but Arthur must needs go too, and tried to pull an oar. When they got to the floating wood sure enough there was the prettiest little girl you ever saw, but wet through, crying, and shivering with cold. Arthur was so eager to get her into the boat that in his hurry he went head first into the water himself and was fished out gasping for breath. He did not care though, but told the men to go home as fast as they could. When he got there he did not dare to take the little girl into his Mother's room all wet as she was, though he forgot that he was as bad himself, but rushed in to tell his Mother of the poor dear little creature he had found. He began "O Mother she says she is six years old-" Who is she" said his Mother " and who are you talking about, and where have you been, and-O you wretched boy-where's your ring?" Arthur looked at his muddy hand-the ring was not there.

"I-I-suppose it dropped off in the river" he said.