Boots an Object of Honor
Among the Chinese no relics are more valuable than the boots which have been worn by an upright magistrate. In Davis’s interesting description of the Empire of China we are informed that whenever a judge of unusual integrity resigns his situation, the people congregate to do him honor. If he leaves the city where he has resided, the crowd accompany him from his residence to the gates, where his boots are drawn off with great ceremony, to be preserved in the hall of justice. Their place is immediately supplied by a new pair, which, in turn, are drawn off to make room for others before he has worn them five minutes, it being considered sufficient to consecrate them that he should have merely drawn them on.