HOW interesting it would be at a flower show to throw open a table competition to Chinese men servants instead of European ladies! The idea has been suggested by the extraordinarily elaborate and very tasteful decorations lately seen in a remote outport, the one by a Ningpo boy, the other by a Pekingese. The Ningpo boy relied almost entirely on flat devices on the tablecloth; one a rosebush in miniature, formed of bits of flat grass for stalks, with leaves and rosebuds, all first detached, then most ingeniously laid together. The napkin by this place was twisted into a snake with red seeds for eyes, a black pupil to each, whilst the napkin opposite represented a wolf. Then came a landscape formed of very small bits of leaf, all green, and somewhat poetic in character. Beside another plate a miniature Abutylon plant appeared quite flat on the table, formed again of detached flower leaves and stalks, and this time with even the flowers pressed open and flattened. And so on all round the table.

The Pekingese hardly equalled the Ningpo boy in this his own specialty of flat pictures. But he had a bowl of magnificent crimson roses in the centre of the table, raised, and with a garland of flowers round the foot. His dishes of fruit were also particularly successful, being decorated with flowers of the same tone of colour as the fruit, only stronger, his table being as a whole all orange and crimson, relieved only by the white of the cloth.