From Fraser's Magazine.

ON CHINESE FANS.

M. Berne Bellecour, grievous to say, sinks | French Academy, from whose ranks M. lower and lower. Among the sculpture, Thiers, M. de Loménie, and M. Dupanthe busts of M. Saint Marceaux may be loup disappeared in such rapid succession, noted, as superior works of a delicacy, ten- has just lost two other members, M. de derness, and force of expression worthy of Sacy, a clever writer, a pure man of letthe greatest masters. ters, a ghost of the seventeenth century; The world of art has incurred several and M. St. René Taillandier, a political noteworthy losses in the last few months, writer of merit, who had devoted the though the artists whose deaths we allude greater part of his career to making France to had long ceased to occupy any place better acquainted with the Sclavonic counamongst contemporaries. Daumier was tries and with Germany. Finally, Parisian blind, Couture and Préault were living on journalism has lost one of its veterans, M. a reputation that dated thirty years back. de Villemessant, who, though nothing Daumier was fitted for something better more than a writer, was an able man of than a caricaturist. He preferred the fash-business. He succeeded from 1854 to ionable fame an inferior style, in which he 1879 in making the Figaroa journal of displayed qualities that bordered on gen- scandalous anecdotes and doubtful jests ius, gave him. There was something of - one of the powers of the press, the monHogarth, Michael Angelo, and Shake-itor of devoutness and gallantry, and the speare in his conceptions, distinguished as chief organ of the Conservative party, flatthey were by a gloomy and impressive tering neither to the Conservatives nor to fancy. His drawing of the massacre of the devout. G. MONOD. the Rue Transnonaine, another entitled "L'Empire c'est la Paix," which represents an immense plain filled with dead bodies, are pages of epic history. Daumier certainly helped to bring on the revolution of 1848 by so making game of Louis Philippe and his ministers as to render IN China, just as the dragon is the symthem odious. His caricatures of judges bol of power and the national emblem of and lawyers are a series of profound and the Chinese people, so is the fan the chartrenchant satires on the world of the law acteristic accompaniment to the every-day courts. Couture owed his renown to a life of the ordinary Chinaman. It is, single work, "L'Orgie Romaine," a large, therefore, possible that a few remarks clever composition, in which too little no- from a purely Chinese standpoint may not tice was taken of the weak drawing and be wholly out of place. For even in these poor coloring. After that his power, like days of advanced globe-trotting it is not Barbier's, after producing "Les Iambcs," every man's luck to get either to Corinth seems to have forsaken him. A picture or to Peking; and the topic is one, moremuch talked about but never exhibited, over, to which the writer has personally "L'Enrôlement en '92," was a copy of a devoted some attention. In his new dicprint by Raffet. Préault, who owed his tionary of the English language, Dr. Lareputation less perhaps to his sculptures tham has ventured to define a fan as an than to his caustic, biting wit, his "mots"instrument used by ladies to move the à la Préault" against the Institute, or the air and cool themselves; a definition government of Louis Philippe, which cir- which is clearly bounded by the four walls culated in all the studios and beerhouses of a European ball-room. All over the where artists and writers met, was nev- Asiatic continent fans are as much in use ertheless gifted with great qualities, a among men as among women; and in vigor of chisel, a power of conception China, to which the following paper will which, with less vanity and more industry, be confined, a fan of some sort or other is might have produced better things. His part and parcel of every man's summer "Marceau," his "Christ mort," his "Sol- equipment. The term "fan" is expressed dats gaulois du pont d'Iena," his figure of in the Chinese language by a single and unEternal Silence in the cemetery of Mont- changeable character, which in Mandarin martre, remain to prove that Préault had in is pronounced shan, the a having almost him the qualities of an artist of the highest exactly the value of the a in "can't." This order which were never completely devel- character is a compound of two others, oped. In M. Duc, architecture has like- namely hu (or hoo), "a door," and yü, wise lost an artist of great merit, to whom "feathers." These are written in the modParis owes one of her finest modern mon- ern style, said to be a gradual modification uments, the new Palais de Justice. The from the ancient hieroglyphs, under which

roes of antiquity according to the fancy of each particular writer. For instance, the "Yu-hsüo," or "Child's Guide to Knowledge," tells us that to the emperor Hsien Yüan, who came to the throne B.C. 2697, we are indebted for this boon to suffering humanity; while the "Kuang-shih-lei-fu," a well-known cyclopædia of antitheses, defers the invention to the reign of Wuwang, the first ruler of the Chow dynasty, or more than a thousand years later. Other authorities declare for the emperor Shun, B.C. 2255, with whose honored name tradition has lovingly coupled more than one similar achievement designed to promote the welfare and happiness of his children. Of the history of fans in China, and their gradual development from the primitive bird's wing or unelaborated leaf, there is positively nothing to record, unless perhaps it be the publication by the

form this same hu is believed actually to stand for the picture of one leaf of a door, and yu for that of the feathers or wings of a bird. From the conjunction of these two hieroglyphs we obtain, not a third hieroglyph for no one pretends that any form of shan, ancient or modern, in any way resembles a fan- but an ideographic combination, analysis of which guides by association to the sense. Feathers be neath a door, door standing by synecdoche for a house that which, made of feathers, is used within doors: scilicet, a fan. Such is a fair specimen of the process by which the ideographic nature of modern Chinese writing is worked out. Whether this process can or cannot be held to fulfil the conditions of sound scientific investigation, and whether even the hieroglyphic value attributed to the original elements of such ideographs has or has not been seriously overrated by philologists, these are open emperor Ngan Ti, of the Chin dynasty questions; at the same time it is admitted on all sides that similar analyses, wherever feasible, afford great assistance to the student, and enable him to retain in the memory such a number of complex characters as would be perfectly impossible were each to be regarded as a tangled concourse of strokes, brought together without rhyme or reason at the sweet will of the Cadmus of China.

(A.D. 405),* of a strange enactment against the use of silk in the manufacture of these articles. It was apparently a mere sumptuary law, having for its object the protec tion of silk, the material which, according to a very ancient belief still prevalent in China, can alone give warmth to the aged. In one of his dissertations on political economy Mencius observed: † "At fifty, without silk no warmth; at seventy without meat no satiety." The sage had been advocating a more extensive cultivation of the mulberry-tree, with a view to provide an adequate source of food for the silkworm; and in the present instance it is most probable that the imperial edict was directed against the indiscriminate waste of silk for purposes of mere luxury; but like all similar enactments, this one fell speedily into desuetude.

Another, and, in the written language, equally common term for a fan is sha (or shah), compounded of the same word yi, "feathers," placed above the character also an ideograph which stands for "a female companion;" in other words, a woman fanning her lord, such indeed be ing one of the daily duties of the denizens of a Chinese harem. With regard to the constant use of the word "feathers" in these combinations, it would appear from Almost every large city in China, and Chinese authorities that wings of birds certainly every important division of the and leaves of trees dispute, if not divide, empire, has its own characteristic fan; or the honor of having furnished the first else there is something peculiar in the fans to mankind. But Chinese authori- make, color, or ornamentation of the comties are eminently unreliable on most mon folding" fan as seen in that parpoints, and the invention of the fan has ticular district, by which it may be been variously attributed to different he- distinguished from its ubiquitous congener. For the folding fan, as the Chinese call it, is the fan par excellence; and all that ingenuity of design has hitherto accomplished has not succeeded in displacing this convenient form from the affections of the people at large. The

*Here used as a contraction of a more complex

character.

It will be seen farther on that fans are almost as

much in requisition out of doors as within the house.

With regard to the two words sha and shan, it is stated in the Fang-yen, by Yang Hsiung, that the former is employed to the east, the latter to the west, of the Shan-hai-Kuan, or point at which the Great Wall of China abuts upon the sea coast, dividing Manchuria from the eighteen provinces.

It should also be mentioned that there is another character, similarly read sha, but differently written, which likewise means a fan. The two are given in dictionaries as separate words, but it is not improbable that they were originally the same.

66

man

large palm-leaf, with its strongly-bound many as thirty-two, and sometimes even edges and natural handle, large quantities thirty-six. The reason why the number of which are exported annually from Can- sixteen is preferred is that such a fan ton and elsewhere, may possibly be the opens into a convenient number of spaces cheapest and most breeze-compelling of to receive the poetical inscription which all kinds; but it is not very portable, and custom has almost, but not altogether, tied cannot readily be stowed away about the down to a given number of lines. person, or stored so as to last into a Irregular inscriptions are, however, not second summer. It finds favor in the uncommon. The Hangchow fan has a eyes of tea-shop and public eating-house great many bones. It is a very stronglykeepers, and is always to be seen in the made article; and though only of paper, guest-chambers, whether of guilds, monas-prepared in some way with oil, may remain teries, or private establishments. The plunged in water (it is said) for twentyfolding fan, on the other hand, occupies four hours without injury. But this fan but little space; and when not in use may finds no favor with those who can afford be stuck in the high boot of the full- to pick and choose, and for a rather singudressed Chinese gentleman, or at the back|lar reason. Just as with the Chinese white of the neck in the loose collarless jacket, is the emblem of death and mourning, so which, with the addition of a curt caleçon, black is regarded as typical of moral imconstitutes the entire toilette of a Chinese purity, and black things are consequently coolie. Besides, the folding fan opens avoided on the strength of the proverb, into a tolerably smooth surface, fairly well" Proximity to vermilion makes a adapted for the painter's art; and even the dirtiest specimen of Chinese vagabondage loves to rest his eye upon some gaily painted flower or a spray or two of the much-prized bamboo. Consequently, the folding fan obtains all over the eighteen provinces of China proper, and beyond, far away across the Great Wall, over the steppes of Mongolia and the mountains of Tibet. Of the more elaborate kinds, produced at Canton for export to Europe, with their exquisitely carved or perforated ivory handles, etc., it will suffice to say that such are quite unknown even in the highest and wealthiest circles of Chinese society, the folding fan being rarely the vehicle of extravagant expenditure in this respect. It may be made, indeed, either of paper or of silk; for handle, ivory or sandal wood may be used; but even then the general get up is as a rule plain, while for the common folding fan of the empire, bamboo is the material most extensively employed, being at once the cheapest and most durable of all woods. Pendents of amber, jade, ivory, and cornelian, and other substances, are also affected by the more refined, and a fan-case beautifully embroidered in some quaint pattern, accompanied perhaps by some appropriate classical allusion, is a very ordinary birthday present from a sister to her brother or from a wife to her husband. The number of "bones" or ribs to a folding fan is a matter which is by no means left to chance. Sixteen, including the two outer pieces, may be quoted as the standard; but fans made in certain localities have more, as

This again is a translation of the Chinese term.

red; to ink, black." Now the Hangchow fan is, with the exception of a sprinkling of gold or silver on the face, as black as it well could be; and it is therefore at a discount even among those by whom the most trifling form of economy cannot be satisfactorily ignored.* Chair coolies, everywhere a degraded class, invest their money in these fans without hesitation, doubtless feeling themselves beyond the reach of such influences as these. Old men, too, may use black fans without scruple. Their age is held to have placed them on a vantage ground in this as in all other respects; for, as Confucius observed, "That which is really white may be in the darkest dye without being made black,"† and a man who has led for years a spotless life is unlikely to be influenced for the bad by mere contact with a fan. Black fans, with black lacquer handles, are made in Canton for sale to the outer barbarian, the hated foreigner, whose moral obliquity is regarded by the masses of China as more prononcé than that of the lowest of their low.

Besides the large non-folding feather fan, generally looked upon in Europe as a hand-screen for the fire, some beautiful specimens of the folding fan are also to be seen in feathers, which show, on being opened, beautifully painted bouquets of flowers, butterflies, birds, etc. etc. Kingfishers' feathers and beetles' wings are also largely employed in the manufacture of

* So punctilious indeed is a respectable Chinaman in the case of mourning, that he will even abstain from chewing betel-nut, because it would make his lips red, and red is emblematical of joy.

↑ See the Lun-yü, bk. xvii., ch. 7.

fans and screens, and tortoise-shell and seems to have fallen to pieces, each bone, jade are occasionally used in elaborating with the part attached to it, being separated the handles of the more expensive kinds. from all the others, as if the connecting White silk, stretched tightly over both strings were broken. This arrangement sides of a narrow frame, round, octagonal, is of course simple enough, but at first sexagonal, or polygonal, as the case may sight the effect, as a trick, is remarkably be, forms what is considered in the higher good. From the broken it is an easy circles of Chinese society the ne plus ultra | transition to the secret or double-entendre of elegance and refinement; especially so when some charming study in flower or landscape painting on the obverse is accompanied by a sparkling stanza on the reverse, signed by the writer and addressed to the friend for whose delectation it is intended. This is a very favorite present among the Chinese; and as poets and painters are but a small minority in China, as elsewhere, it follows that any man who is sufficiently an artist to supply either the verses or the design need never starve for want of occupation. One of the highest officials and most renowned calligraphists in the Chinese empire at the present moment, when formerly a struggling student at Foochow, eked out a scanty livelihood by writing inscriptions for fans in all kinds of styles, ancient and modern, at about one shilling and eightpence per fan. Outside his door was a notice calling the attention of the public to the above fact, and the fancy name he gave to his studio was Laugh, but Buy.'

fan, which opened one way shows a flower or similarly harmless design; the other, some ribald sketch which with us would entail severe penalties on maker, publisher, and all concerned. It is only fair, however, to the administration of China to state that, theoretically speaking, the same penalties would be incurred, though prac tically they are seldom if ever enforced. In the Peking form of this fan there are always two such pictures to each. These are not seen when the fan is opened out, and it will only open one way; but are disclosed by turning back the two end ribs or "bones." A far more creditable and more useful compagnon de voyage is the map fan, which gives the plan of some such great city as Peking or Canton, with the names of the streets and public buildings marked in characters of medium legibility. Sometimes whole districts are included on the surface of a fan; and as the distances from place to place are given with considerable accuracy, travellers not unusually invest the small sums required for the purchase of these topographical guides. So, too, any great national event may be circulated over the empire by means of fans, precisely as penny books of the lord mayor's show are still sold in Fleet Street on every November 9. The Tientsin massacre, for instance, brought forth a hideous specimen, with horrid details of the hacking to pieces of Roman Catholic priests and sisters, the burning of the cathedral and of the French consulate, the murder of the French consul and his chancelier. The sale of these fans was almost immediately prohibited by the Chinese authorities, and they are now very rare.

That kind known as the "Swatow" fan is for a non-folding fan perhaps the most serviceable of all, as for lightness and durability combined it is certainly without a rival. It is formed from a piece of bamboo, about a foot and a half in length and half an inch in diameter, split two-thirds of the way down into a number of slips, each very thin and apparently fragile, while really possessed of its full share of the strength and flexibility of the parent stem. These slips are spread out in the same plane, with their tips slightly bent over, somewhat like a mustard spoon; and then strong paper is pasted over the whole as far down as the splits extend, the remaining unsplit half serving as handle. This fan is said to be actually made near Amoy, Some "fans" are not fans at all. The probably near Chang-chow, and to be sent "steel fan" is simply a bar of metal, to Swatow only to be painted; but to shaped and painted to resemble an ordiforeigners resident in China it is univer- nary closed fan, and carried sometimes as sally known as the "Swatow" fan. Of all a life-preserver, sometimes by the swell fancy fans there is none so curious as mobsmen and rowdies of China, to be used what is commonly termed the "broken at close quarters with murderous effect. fan," which at first sight would appear to Of the same species is the well-known be a simple folding fan, and on being" dagger fan," which consists of an elegant opened from left to right as usual discloses imitation in lacquer of a common folding nothing to distinguish it from the most fan, but it is really a sheath containing ordinary kind. Opened, however, the re- within its fair exterior a deadly blade, verse way, from right to left, the whole fan | short and sharp, like a small Malay kris.

and which are supposed to be changed simultaneously all over the empire; but Chinese custom has made it as ridiculous for a man to carry a fan before or after a certain conventional date as it would be with us to wear a white waistcoat in March or November.

This dagger fan was invented by the Jap- | tumn are smaller than those used in sumanese, and its importation into China has mer, reminding one of the old Roman always been strictly forbidden. Great luxury of summer and winter rings. It is numbers have, however, been successfully also mauvais ton to be seen with a fan introduced into Canton, Foochow, and too early or too late in the year. There other large maritime cities, and they are are indeed no days absolutely fixed for the now even manufactured by the enterpris- beginning and end of the fan season, as in ing natives of the first-mentioned port. the case of the summer and winter hats A curious specimen of the fan is pro-worn by all employés of the government, duced in Formosa, consisting of a thick, pithy leaf, shaped like a cone with the apex chopped off, and a short handle fitted to the line of severance, and bearing upon its face a landscape or group of figures burnt in with a hot iron. It was the invention of a needy scholar of Taiwan Fu, the capital city of Formosa, who being During the summer months a bird's-eye in distressed circumstances hit upon the view of China would disclose a perfect above novelty as a means of replenishing flutter of fans from one confine to the his empty purse. The fan took immensely other. Punkahs are unknown to the Chifor a time, long enough in fact to make the nese, except as an innovation of the forfortune of the inventor, who for a consid-eigner; and it has been necessary to coin erable period was at his wits' end to meet a term expressly for them. Occasionally the demand. The rage for them has been they may be seen in the house of some now for some time spent, and they are wealthy Chinese merchant, as, for instance, only made in small quantities, for sale more as curiosities than anything else. For there are fashions in fans as in other articles of human luxury in China as elsewhere. Every year sees some fresh variety, differing perhaps imperceptibly to the European eye from the favorite of the preceding season, but still sufficiently so to constitute a novelty, a new fashion for the wealthy Chinese exquisite. A foreigner may live for years amongst the Chinese and never notice any change to relieve the monotony of their dress. Yet, as a matter of fact, some variety, even of hat or shoes, is introduced almost annually. The fashionable cap is squarer or rounder at the top as the case may be; the shoes more or less pointed, or ornamented after some novel design. And so it is with fans, which are made of different material and of different sizes for different seasons of the year in proportion to the quantity of breeze required. In the "Miscellanies of the Western Capital" we read: "The fans of the son of heaven are, for the summer, of feathers; for the winter, of silk;" and in a poem by Ow-yang Hisu occurs this line:

in the establishment of the celebrated Howqua family at Canton; but even then they are regarded more as a curiosity than as appliances of every-day use. On the other hand, it can hardly be said that the idea of a general fan or punkah has escaped the searching ingenuity of the Chinese; for in the work last quoted we are informed that "under the Han dynasty [between sixteen hundred and two thousand years ago] there lived at Ch'ang-an a very skilful workman, named Ting Huan, who made a seven-wheeled fan. This consisted of seven large wheels, ten feet in diameter, joined together, the whole being turned by a single man, and keeping the place quite cool during the summer months." This description is a trifle too meagre to enable us to state with certainty the exact shape of the machine in question. The paddle-wheel of a steamer seems to come the nearest to it; and from the loftiness of Chinese halls and reception rooms in general, both official and private, no objection could be offered on the score of height. Be this as it may, such a machine would at any rate be free from what is in Chinese eyes the weak with regard to the person operated upon. point of a punkah - namely, its position A Chinaman fans his face, arms, legs, chest, and even back, as he may feel disposed at the moment; but he objects strongly to a draught of air falling on the top of his head, and avoids it as much as possible. At meals, during the very hot weather, servants usually stand behind