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. Here they find all kinds of toys, curios,
and articles of general use, from a top to a broom, from bits of
jade or other precious stones, to a snuff bottle hollowed out of
a solid quartz crystal, or a market basket or a dust-pan made of
reeds.
Peking being the city of the court, and the headquarters of many
of the greatest officials, is the receptacle of the finest
products of the oldest and greatest non-Christian people the
world has ever known. China easily leads the world in the making
of porcelain, the best of which has always gone to Peking for use
in the palace, and so we can find here the best products of every
reign from the time of Kang Hsi, as well as those of the former
dynasties, to that of Kuang Hsu and the Empress Dowager. The same
is true of her brass and bronze incense-burners and images, her
wood and ivory carvings, her beautiful embroideries, her
magnificent tapestries, and her paintings by old masters of six
or eight hundred years ago. Here we can find the finest Oriental
rugs, in a good state of preservation, with the "tone' that only
age can give, made long before the time of Washington.
There is no better market for fine bits of embroidery, mandarin
coats, and all the better products of needle, silk and floss, of
which the Chinese have been masters for centuries, than the city
of the court. The population consists largely of great officials
and their families, whose cast-off clothing, toned down by the
use of years, often without a blemish or a spot, finds its way
into the hands of dealers
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