of Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes published during the past
year. It is much easier for me to find the flaws than the

remedies. Many of the words used in the original have no
written character or hieroglyphic to represent them, while

many others, though having a written form, are, like our
own slang expressions, not found in the dictionary.

Now let us turn to a more pleasant feature of this unwritten
nurseryliterature. The language is full of good rhymes,

and all objectionable features can be cut out without injury
to the rhyme, as it was not a part of the original, but added

by some more unscrupulous hand.
Among the nursery rhymes of all countries many refer to

insects, birds, animals, persons, actions, trades, food or
children. In Chinese rhymes we have the cricket, cicada,

spider, snail, firefly, ladybug and butterfly and others.
Among fowls we have the bat, crow, magpie, cock, hen,

duck and goose. Of animals, the dog, cow, horse, mule,
donkey, camel, and mouse, are the favorites. There are

also rhymes on the snake and frog, and others without
number on places, things and persons,--men, women and

children.
Those who hold that the Chinese do not love their

children have never consulted their nursery lore. There is
no language in the world, I venture to believe, which

contains children's songs expressive of more keen and tender
affection than some of those sung to children in China.

When we hear a parent say that his child
"Is as sweet as sugar and cinnamon too,"

or that
"Baby is a sweet pill,

That fills my soul with joy"
or when we see a father, mother or nurse--for nurses sometimes

become almost as fond of their little charge as the parents
themselves,--hugging the child to their bosoms as they say that

he is so sweet that "he makes you love him till it kills you," we
begin to appreciate the affection that prompts the utterance.

Another feature of these rhymes is the same as that found in the
nursery songs of all nations, namely, the food element. "Jack

Sprat," "Little Jacky Horner," "Four and Twenty Black-birds,"
"When Good King Arthur Ruled the Land," and a host of others will

indicate what I mean. A little child is a highly developed
stomach, and anything which tells about something that ministers

to the appetite and tends to satisfy that aching void, commends
itself to his literary taste, and hence the popularity of many

of our nursery rhymes, the only thought of which is about
something good to eat. Notice the following:

Look at the white breasted crows overhead.
My father shot once and ten crows tumbled dead.

When boiled or when fried they taste very good,
But skin them, I tell you, there's no better food.

In imagination I can see the reader raise his eyebrows and
mutter, "Do the Chinese eat crows?" while at the same time he has

been singing all his life about what a "dainty dish" "four and
twenty blackbirds" would make for the "king," without ever

raising the question as to whether blackbirds are good eating or
not.

We note another feature of all nursery rhymes in the
additions made by the various persons through whose hands,

--or should we say, through whose mouths they pass.
When an American or English child hears how a certain

benevolent dame found no bone in her cupboard to satisfy
the cravings of her hungry dog, its feelings of compassion

are stirred up to ask: "And then what? Didn't she get
any meat? Did the dog die?" and the nurse is compelled

to make another verse to satisfy the curiosity of the child
and bring both the dame and the dog out of the dilemma in

which they have been left. This is what happened in the
case of "Old Mother Hubbard" as will readily be seen by

examining the meter of the various verses. The original
"Mother Hubbard" consisted of nothing more than the first

six lines which contain three rhymes. All the other verses
have but four lines and one rhyme.

We find the same thing in Chinese Mother Goose. Take the
following as an example:

He ate too much,
That second brother,

And when he had eaten his fill
He beat his mother.

This was the original rhyme. Two verses have been added without
rhyme, reason, rhythm, sense or good taste. They are as follows:

His mother jumped up on the window-sill,
But the window had no crack,

She then looked into the looking-glass,
But the mirror had no back.

Then all at once she began to sing,
But the song it had no end

And then she played the monkey trick
And to heaven she did ascend.

The moral teachings of nursery rhymes are as varied as
the morals of the people to whom the rhymes belong. The

"Little Mouse" already given contains both a warning and
a penalty. The mouse which had climbed up the candle-

stick to steal tallow was unable to get down. This was
the penalty for stealing, and indicates to children that if

they visit the cupboard in their mother's absence and take
her sweetmeats without her permission, they may suffer as

the mouse did. To leave the mouse there after he had
repeatedly called for that halo-crowned grandmother, who

refused to come, would have been too much for the child's
sympathies, and so the mouse doubles himself up into a

wheel, and rolls to the floor.
In other rhymes, children are warned against stealing, but

the penalty threatened is rather an indication of the
untruthfulness of the parent or nurse than a promise of reform in

the child, for they are told that,
If you steal a needle

Or steal a thread,
A pimple will grow

Upon your head.
If you steal a dog

Or steal a cat,
A pimple will grow

Beneath your hat.
Boys are warned of the dire consequences if they wear

their hats on the side of their heads or go about with ragged
coats or slipshod feet.

If you wear your hat on the side of your head,
You'll have a lazy wife, 'tis said.

If a ragged coat or slipshod feet,
You'll have a wife who loves to eat.

Those rhymes which manifest the affection of parents for
children cultivate a like affection in the child. We have in

the Chinese Mother Goose a rhyme called the Little Orphan,
which is a most pathetic tale. A little boy tells us that,