A CHINESE ENTERPRISE.

We are all more or less interested nowadays in China and the Chinese. They are a curious people, and their customs are so different from those of other nations that to us, who are proud of being civilized, they sometimes seem quite ridiculous. What civilized nation would provide a regular home for beggars, for instance—not as a matter of charity, for all civilized people do that, but purely in the line of business? Yet the Chinese do this, if the following story told by a German newspaper is true. According to this journal, the Kleine Chronik, a joint-stock company in Peking erected some years ago a large building termed Ki-mao-fan, or hen-feather-house. It is to be used as a night refuge for the begging population of the Celestial city. A monster feather-bed covers the whole floor of one of the largest rooms. Old and young, all are admitted without distinction. Each settles down for the night as comfortably as he can in this ocean of feathers. At first each sleeper received a small blanket, but it was found, subsequently, that these blankets very soon disappeared, being probably appropriated by the servants of the establishment, so an enormous common blanket, full of round holes through which the beggars at rest on the feathers can thrust their heads for air, was made, large enough to cover the floor of the whole room. In the day-time this general blanket is drawn up to the ceiling by ropes and pulleys, and at night, when all the company are in their places, it is let down, and then the beggars have to look sharp to get their heads through one of the holes lest they run a good chance of being suffocated. The same in the morning, they must be careful to draw their heads out of the hole at the first stroke of the tomtom, when the blanket is again lifted from the huge nest lest they be drawn up to the ceiling and hanged.