"Sacred ashes of Mon War." Once a week these bags of ashes are taken y a Mon War wagon, kept especially for the purpose, to the water front, and there in a boat manned by Chin Ching and his assistants, are rowed far out near the Golden Gate, where the waters are pure and the tide runs swift. There they are emptied out, and on the crest of the waves are swept out to mingle with the salt of the Pacific.

Every morning, when the sun is just

the laundry list from the poorest resident. This keeping of the Sacred Furnace is not a law of the Court, but a law handed down from the early days of China and for hundreds of years. Though it is generally kept a secret, it is observed wherever a number of Chinamen are congregated. In Canton and all other large cities of China a number of these sacred furnaces are maintained in order to handle all the letters, for there too, every house from the richest to the

pile several feet in height. Papers, letters, bills and manuscripts, all colors, sizes and shapes; tiny narrow red slips, great yellow posters, letters, bundles of them tied together, some of them strongly bespeaking romance, and any number of curious things, but not one in all that tempting assortment can be touched, not even to examine the old Chinese inscrip. tions. "All same sakled, no read, no touch, no handle, you sabee, I burn, I no look."

"Where you gather them?"

"Oh, catch'em ebly place, ebly house." "You take from the Chinese Consul. Ho Yow?"

"Oh, heap, ebly day."

And the old Chinaman extended his arms to illustrate the bundle of private correspondence and papers that the upto-date Ho Yow sends to the sacred furnace. One place in the world where a secret is secure! However reckless a highbinder may be, however much he may wish possession of certain information, should the desired knowledge he

given in full, in script already consigned to the Mon War Sher he would not touch it; he could not for the sake of his own peace of mind on earth, rouse the ire of all those generations of departed ancestors. He could not afford to jeopardise his position on the next plain by defiling a holy place. No wonder the Six Companies feel perfectly secure in sending their unsealed secrets to the furnace. Great bags of letters are taken from the various clubs daily. The dainty little almond-eyed women of China watch for the gatherer in order to place with their own hands into the sacred bag the missives which are so precious to them. The Chinese belles when off with the old love and on with the new, holds no midnight seance with love letters; there is no consigning of piece by piece the once precious script and watching the blue flames leap and dance sending their thoughts back and making one feel like a murderess as the contents of the buna.e crumbles in ashes. There is little chance for romance in the correspondence of

the Chinese, for with few exceptions they feel duty bound to burn all writing as soon as its purport is comprehended. Every day of the 365 the Mon War Sher is purified by clouds of incense, and every day the sacred fire fed by sacred fuel burns and sends up a sacred smoke -a mute offering to the Gods, a tribute to the memory of Confucius and an ancestral reverence in which all Chinese join.

Poetical China! Surely in many respects she scores over the more practical nations.

Another interesting fact worthy of note regarding the Sacred Furnace and its aged keeper is the nightly visitation of the feline inhabitants of Chinatown. Every night when the hands of the clock get around to ten old Chin Ching holds a reception on the front steps. These receptions are quiet little affairs generally-the guests come and eat their ull and go away without even an adieu. However it is generally understood that the following evening they will return for a repetition of the feast. The face of old Chin never looks so happy as when he is dealing out the morsels of liver to his four-footed visitors. From all portions of Chinatown the tramp cats assemble to share his hospitality. Sometimes they number as many as twenty. The lean, scraggy, half-frightened animals creep stealthily up to get their scraps of meat, then scamper away; others, grown tame by long good treatment eat quietly and saunter off, but they all share alike. The cats find a good friend in Chin and they well know where to find

the sacred furnace. Chin is not so well possessed of this earthly goods that ne can well afford it, yet each month so much is put aside for his cat friends, and every day he makes a visit to the butcher to provide for their entertainment. When asked why he buys meat for strange cacs he replied, and brought a Chinese Bible for his authority, "Maybe when I feed cats I feed my father, my brother or my uncle. You sabee picture?" and he fumbled the leaves until he found a page with an array of princely looking warriors and a few crown-headed kings on the upper half. On the lower portion of the page an assortment of crabs, lobsters, cats, beetles and a menagerie of impossible animals, both two-footed and four-footed, were pictured. "You sabee good man. He die, he come back like him. Heap money, heap happy," and Ching pointed out the pictures of the kings. So, good Chinaman when they die and return to earth again live as great men; the bad men come back as cats. "You see him alle same bad man. Bad man he come back maby clab, mayby cat, maby horse; maby sometime my father, my brother, my cousin not good. All lite. Then he came back, alle same cat. wnen I feed maybe I feed my father. Lou sabee?"

And perhaps he may. Who knows? At any rate his curious belief provides the cats of Chinatown with a valuable friend and also furnishes Chin a kindly disposition. There is no more interesting place in the quarter than the Sacred Furnace of Mon War and the nightly rendezvous of Chin's spiritual ancestors.

ARMSTRONG

HIRTY-FOUR years after the founding of the Overland Monthly, Francis Bret Harte, the first editor of this magazine, died in London, where he had made his home for many years. To say that his death leaves a large vacancy in the world of letters is an inadequate expression. Harte was the founder of a school of literature and, because he was inimitable, he had myriads of imitators. The uniqueness of his work was due to two things: his own peculiar genius and the condition of society in the early Californian days-the exact counterpart of these conditions the world never saw before and will probably never see again. California had revealed her golden fleece and the Argo was laden with a motley crew. It was with these strange companions of Jason that Bret Harte lingered and gathered a material which has enenriched the world far more than the gold which the Argonauts mined from the Sierras.

It was with the founding of the Overland Monthly in 1868 that Bret Harte's literary career virtually began, and the name of Bret Harte will always be identified with this magazine. It was in July, 1868, the initial issue of the Overland Monthly, that Harte struck his first great note in "San Francisco from the Sea"

"Serene, indifferent of Fate,
Thou sittest by the Western gate;
Upon thy heights so lately won
Still slant the banners of the sun;
Thou seest the white seas strike
their tents.

O Warder of two Continents,
And scornful of the peace that flies
Thy angry winds and sullen skies,
Thou drawest all things, small and
great,

To thee, beside the Western gate."

But the work that made a great furore at the time of its publication and which

brought a storm of discussion about the head of the author and his publishers, was "The Luck of Roaring Camp," which appeared in the second issue of the Overland Monthly (August 1868). This story, written so early in Harte's career, was teeming with the best of his genius. It was conceived in the wild zest of youth and was so unconventional as to excite the eternal enmity of his more orthodox readers. Among the brilliant coterie who supported the Overland Monthly at that time were, Samuel L. Clemens, Ina D. Coolbrith, Charles Warren Stoddard, Noah Brooks, and later, Edgar Fawcett. Mark Twain was then a struggling newspaper man who had followed the quest of gold and had turned to writing. He was just back from abroad and most of his earlier contributions were in the way of reminiscences of travel in France and Germany.

With the "Luck of Roaring Camp" Bret Harte's luck seemed to have begun. The "Heathen Chinee" appeared in the Overland Monthly shortly afterward and the name of its author was circulated broadcast. In 1870 he moved to New York and in 1878 he was appointed as consul to Crefela, Germany. Up to 1885 he was identified with various consular posts, but after that time he resided in London, following a career of letters.

The remarkable feature in Bret Harte's career was the fact that, although he left California in 1870 never to return, he wrote vividly realistic tales of Cali fornia up to the time of his death in 1902. His mind was a storehouse burdened with a wealth of memories gathered in early California, as fertile in romance as in all things.

We shall have more to say concerning Bret Harte and early California in our September number, which will contain contributions from leading literary people all over the world and will deal with the growth of California's art and industries during the thirty-four years since the Overland Monthly was founded and Bret Harte made a golden age of letters in California.