Nominal donations of clothes, if the money value of the articles be presented instead, will entitle the givers to similar honours."-- _The Peking Gazette_, August 22, 1892.
In the centre of the green stands the hollow pillar in which Chinese printed waste-paper is reverently burnt.

"When letters were invented," the Chinese say, "Heaven rejoiced and Hell trembled." "Reverence the characters," is an injunction of Confucius which no Chinaman neglects to follow.

He remembers that "he who uses lettered paper to kindle the fire has ten demerits, and will have itchy sores"; he remembers that "he who tosses lettered paper into dirty water, or burns it in a filthy place, has twenty demerits and will frequently have sore eyes or become blind," whereas "he who goes about and collects, washes, and burns lettered paper, has 5000 merits, adds twelve years to his life, will become honoured and wealthy, and his children and grandchildren will be virtuous and filial." But his reverence has strict limits, and while he reverences the piece of paper upon which a moral precept is written, he often thinks himself absolved from reverencing the moral precept itself, just as a deacon in England need not necessarily be one who never over-reached his neighbours or swindled his creditors..