The boy travellers in the Far East : adventures of two youths ... - Library

CHINESE JUGGLERS. 379
tlieiii, and she danced around on her stilts as tliongli she had been accustomed
to tlieni all her life. In fact, the whole party were (juite at homo
on their stilts, and would have been an attrac-
tion in any part of America. Whenever the
Chinese try to do anything- of this sort, they
are pretty sure to do it well.
" Then there were jugglers spinning plates
on sticks, and doing other things of a char-
acter more or less marvellous. One of their
tricks is to s])in the plate on two sticks held
at right angles to each other, instead of on a
single stick, as with ns ; but how they manage
to do it I am unable to say. They make the
plate whirl very fast, and can keep it iip a
long time without any apparent fatigue.
" We passed several mien who had small
establishments for gambling, not unlike some
that are known in America. There was one
M'ith a revolving pointer on the top of a
horizontal table that was divided into sections
with different marks and numbers. The point-
er had a string, hanging down from one end,
1,1
and tne
''.i 1 il way they made the
1 •
1
machine work
^
JOGGLER SPINNING A PLATE.
M'as to whirl the pointer, and see where the string hung when it stop-
ped. The game appeared to be ver}' fair, as the man who paid his
money had the chance of M'hirling the pointer, and he might do his
own guessing as to where it would
stop. If he was right, he would win
eight times as much money as he
had wagered, since the board was di-
\ided into eight spaces. If he was
wrong, he lost all that he put down,
and was obliged to go away or try
his luck again. The temptation to
natives seems to be very great, since
the}' are constantly gambling, and
sometimes lose all the money they
have. Gambling is so great a vice in
China that a good many of its forms
GAMBLING -WITH A REVOLVING POINTER. ha\'e bceu forbiddcu by the govern-