CHAPTER VIII.

ADMINISTRATION OF THE LAWS.

~CHECKS PLACED UPON OFFICE-HOLDERS.~

The preceding chapter contains a general view of the plan upon which the central and provincial governments of the Empire are constructed; and if an examination of the conduct of officers in every department shows their extortion, cruelty, and venality, it will not, in the opinion of the liberal-minded reader, detract from the general excellence of the theory of the government, and the sagacity exhibited in the system of checks designed to restrain the various parts from interfering with the well-being of the whole. In addition to the division of power and the restrictions upon Chinese officers already mentioned, there are other means adopted in their location and alternation to prevent combination and resistance against the head of the state. One of them is the law forbidding a man to hold any civil office in his native province, which, besides stopping all intrigue where it would best succeed, has the further effect of congregating aspirants for office at Peking, where they come in hope of obtaining some post, or of succeeding in the examination for the highest literary degrees. The central government could not contrive a better plan for bringing all the ambitious and talented men in the country under its observation before appointing them to clerkships in the capital, or scattering them in the provinces.

Moreover, no officer is allowed to marry in the jurisdiction under his control, nor own land in it, nor have a son, brother, or near relative holding office under him; and he is seldom continued in the same station or province for more than three or four years. Manchus and Chinese are mingled together in high stations, and obligations are imposed on certain grandees to inform the Emperor of each other’s acts. Members of the imperial clan are required to attend the meetings of the Boards at the capital, and observe and report what they deem amiss or of interest to the Emperor and his council; while in all the upper departments of the general and provincial governments, a system of espionage is carried out, detrimental to all principles of honorable fidelity, such as we look for in officials, but not without some good effects in a weak despotism like China. There is, besides this constant surveillance, a triennial catalogue made out of the merits and demerits of all officers in the Empire, which is submitted to imperial inspection by the Board of Civil Office. In order to collect the details for this catalogue, it is incumbent upon every provincial officer to report upon the character and qualifications of those under him, and the list, when made out, is forwarded by the governor to the capital. The points of character are arranged under six different heads, viz.: those who are not diligent, the inefficient, the superficial, the untalented, superannuated, and diseased. According to the opinion given in this report, officers are elevated or degraded so many steps in the scale of merit, like school-boys in a class, and whenever they issue an edict are required to state how many steps they have been advanced or degraded, and how many times recorded. Officers are required to accuse themselves, when guilty of crime, either in their own conduct or that of their subordinates, and request punishment. The results of this peculiar and patriarchal mode of teaching officers their duty will be best exhibited by quoting from a rescript of Taukwang’s, issued in February, 1837, after one of the catalogues had been submitted to his Majesty.

“The cabinet minister Changling has strenuously exerted himself during a long lapse of years; he has reached the eightieth year of his age, yet his energies are still in full force. His colleagues Pwan Shí-ngăn and Muchangah, as well as the assistant cabinet minister Wang Ting, have invariably displayed diligence and attention, and have not failed in yielding us assistance. Tang Kin-chau, president of the Board of Office, has knowledge and attainments of a respectable and sterling character, and has shown himself public-spirited and intelligent in the performance of special duties assigned to him. Shí Chí-yen, president of the Board of Punishments, retains his usual strength and energies, and in the performance of his judicial duties has displayed perspicacity and circumspection. The assistant cabinet minister and governor of Chihlí province, Kíshen, transacts the affairs of his government with faithfulness, and the military force under his control is well disciplined. Husungé, the governor of Shensí and Kansuh provinces, is cautious and prudent, and performs his duties with careful exactness. Ílípu, governor of Yunnan and Kweichau, is well versed in the affairs of his frontier government, and has fully succeeded in preserving it free from disturbance. Linking, who is entrusted with the general charge of the rivers in Kiangnan, has not failed in his care of the embankments, and has preserved the surrounding districts from all disquietude. To show our favor unto all these, let the Board of Office determine on appropriate marks of distinction for them.

“Kweisan, subordinate minister of the Cabinet, is hasty and deficient, both in precision and capacity; he is incapable of moving and acting for himself; let him take an inferior station, and receive an appointment in the second class of the guards. Yihtsih, vice-president of the Board of Works for Mukden, possesses but ordinary talents, and is incompetent to the duties of his present office; let him also take an inferior station, and be appointed to a place in the first class of guards. Narkingé, the governor-general of Hukwang, though having under him the whole civil and military bodies of two provinces, has yet been unable, these many days, to seize a few beggarly impish vagabonds: after having in the first instance failed in prevention, he has followed up that failure by idleness and remissness, and has fully proved himself inefficient. Let him take the lower station of governor in Hunan, and within one year let him, by the apprehension of Lan Ching-tsun, show that he is aroused to greater exertions.

“Let all our other servants retain their present appointments. Among them Tau Shu, the governor of Kiangnan and Kiangsí, is bold and determined in the transaction of affairs, but has not yet attained enlarged views in regard to the salt department; Chung Tsiang, the governor of Fuhkien and Chehkiang, finds his energies failing; Tăng Ting-ching, the governor of Kwangtung and Kwangsí, possesses barely an adequate degree of talent and knowledge; and Shin Kí-hien, though faithful and earnest in the performance of his duties, has, in common with these others, been not very long in office.

“That all ministers will act with purity and devotedness of purpose, with public spirit and diligence, is our most fervent hope. A special edict.”[240]

The effect of such confessions and examination of character is to restrain the commission of outrageous acts of oppression; it is still further enforced by the privilege, common alike to censors and private subjects, of complaining to the Emperor of misdeeds done to them by persons in authority. Fear for their own security has suggested this multiplicity of checks, but the Emperor and his ministry have no doubt thereby impeded the efficiency of their subordinates, and compelled them to attend so much to their own standing that they care far less than they otherwise would for the prosperity of the people.

~CHARACTER OF CHINESE OFFICIALS.~

The position of an officer in the Chinese government can hardly be ascertained from the enumeration of his duties, nor can we easily appreciate, from a general account of the system, his temptations to oppress inferiors and deceive superiors. His duties, as indicated in the code, are so minute, and often so contradictory, as to make it impossible to fulfil them strictly; it is found, accordingly, that few or none have ascended the slippery heights of promotion without frequent relapses. Degradation, when to a step or two and temporary, carries with it of course no moral taint in a country where the award for bribery is graduated to the amount received, without any reference to moral violation; where the bamboo is the standard of punishment as well for error in judgment or remissness as for crime--only commuted to a fine in honor of official rank; where, as a distinction in favor of the imperial race, the bamboo is softened to the whip and banishment mitigated to the pillory.[241] The highest officers have of course the greatest opportunity to oppress, but their extortions are limited by the venality and mendacity of the agents they are compelled to employ. Inferiors also can carry on a system of exactions if they keep on the right side of those above them. The whole class form a body of men mutually jealous of each other’s advance, where every incumbent endeavors to supplant his associate; they all agree in regarding the people as the source of their profits, the sponge which all must squeeze, but differ in the degree to which they should carry on the same plan with each other. Although sprung from the mass of the people, the welfare of the community has little place in their thoughts. Their life is spent in ambitious efforts to rise upon the fall of others, though they do not lose all sense of character or become reckless of the means of advance, for this would destroy their chance of success. The game they play with each other and their imperial master is, however, a harmless one compared with what was done in old Rome or in Europe four or five centuries ago, or even lately among the pashas and viziers of the sultans and shahs in Western Asia. To the honor of the Chinese, life is seldom sacrificed for political crime or envious emulation; no officer dreads a bowstring or a poisoned cup from his lord paramount, nor is he on the watch against the dagger of an assassin hired by a vindictive competitor. Whatever heights of favor or depths of umbrage he may experience, the servant of the Emperor of China need not, in unproved cases of delinquency, fear for his life; but he not unfrequently takes it himself from conscious guilt and dread of just punishment.

The names and standing of all officers are published quarterly by permission of government in the _Red Book_ (which by an unusual coincidence is bound in red), called the “Complete Record of the Girdle Wearers” (_Tsin Shin Tsiuen Shu_), comprised in four volumes, 12mo, to which are added two others of the Army and Bannermen. This publication was first issued at the command of Wanlih, of the Ming dynasty, about 1580, and mentions the native province of each person, whether Chinese, Manchu, Mongol, or enrolled Chinese, describes the title of the office, its salary, and gives much general information. The publishers of the book expect that officers will inform them of the changes that take place in their standing, and sometimes omit to mention those who do not thus report themselves.

~CAREER OF DUKE HO.~

A memoir of the public life of a high officer in China would present a singular picture of ups and downs, but, on account of their notorious disregard of truth, Chinese documents are unsafe to trust entirely in drawing such a sketch. One of the most conspicuous men in late times was Duke Ho, the premier in the time of Macartney’s embassy, who for many years exercised a greater control over the counsels of a Chinese sovereign than is recorded of any other man during the present dynasty. This man was originally a private person, who attracted the notice of the Emperor by his comeliness, and secured it by his zeal in discharging the offices entrusted to him. With but few interruptions he gradually mounted the ladder of promotion, and for some years before Kienlung’s death, when the latter’s energies had begun to fail from age, was virtual master of the country. Staunton describes him as possessing eminent abilities; “the manners of Hokwăn were not less pleasing than his understanding was penetrating and acute. He seemed indeed to possess the qualities of a perfect statesman.”[242] The favorite had gradually filled the highest posts with his friends, and his well-wishers were so numerous in the general and provincial governments that some began to apprehend a rising in his favor when the Emperor died. Kiaking, on coming to the throne, began to take those cautious measures for his removal which showed the great influence he possessed; one of these proceedings was to appoint him superintendent of the rites of mourning, in order, probably, that his official duties might bring him often to the palace. After four years the Emperor drew up sixteen articles of impeachment, most of them frivolous and vexatious, though of more consequence in the eyes of a Chinese prince than they would have been at other courts. One article alleged that he had ridden on horseback up to the palace gate; another, that he had appropriated to his own household the females educated for the imperial harem; a third, that he had detained the reports of officers in time of war from coming to the Emperor’s eye, and had appointed his own retainers to office, when they were notoriously incompetent; a fourth, that he had built many apartments of _nan-muh_, a kind of laurel-wood exclusively appropriated to royalty, and imitated regal style in his grounds and establishment; a fifth, that “on the day previous to our Royal Father’s announcement of our election as his successor, Hokwăn waited upon us and presented the insignia of the newly conferred rank--thereby betraying an important secret of state, in hopes of obtaining our favor.” He was also accused of having pearls and jewels of larger size than those even in the Emperor’s regalia. But so far as can be inferred from what was published, this Cardinal Wolsey of China was, comparatively speaking, not cruel in the exercise of his power, and the real cause of his fall was evidently his riches. In the schedule of his confiscated property it was mentioned that besides houses, lands, and other immovable property to an amazing extent, not less than one hundred and five millions of dollars in bullion and gems were found in his treasury. A special tribunal was instituted for his trial, and he was allowed to become his own executioner, while his constant associate was beheaded. These were the only deaths, the remainder of his relatives and dependents being simply removed and degraded. His power was no doubt too great for the safety of his master if he had proved faithless; but his wealth was too vast for his own security, even had he been innocent. The Emperor, in the edict which contains the sentence, cites as a precedent for his own acts similar condemnation of premiers by three of his ancestors in the present dynasty, but nothing definite is known of their crimes or trials.[243]

Taukwang was more clement, or more fortunate than his father, and upon coming to the throne continued Tohtsin in power; this statesman had held the premiership from 1815 to 1832, with but few interruptions, when he was allowed to retire at the age of seventy-five. He had served under three emperors, having risen step by step from the situation of clerk in one of the offices. His successor, Changling, experienced a far more checkered course, but remained in favor at last, and retired from the premiership in 1836, aged about seventy-nine. He became very popular with his master from his ability in quelling the insurrection of Jehangír in Turkestan in 1827. Even a few such instances of the honor in which an upright, energetic, and wise minister is regarded by prince and people have great influence in encouraging young men to act in the same way.

~LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MINISTER SUNG.~

Few Chinese statesmen have been oftener brought into the notice of western foreigners than Sung, one of the commissioners attached to Lord Macartney’s embassy, and a favorite of all its members. His lordship speaks of him then as a young man of high quality, possessing an elevated mind; and adds that “during the whole time of our connection with him he has on all occasions conducted himself toward us in the most friendly and gentleman-like manner.” This was in 1793. In 1817 he is mentioned as one of the Cabinet; but not long after, for some unknown reason, he was degraded by Kiaking to the sixth rank, and appointed adjutant-general among the Tsakhar Mongols; from thence he memorialized his master respecting the ill conduct of some lamas, who had been robbing and murdering. Sung and his friends opposed the Emperor’s going to Manchuria, and were involved in some trouble on this account, the reasons of which it is difficult to understand. He was promoted, however, to be captain-general of Manchuria, but again fell under censure, and on his visit to his paternal estate at Mukden the Emperor took him back to the capital and appointed him to some important office. He soon got into new trouble with the Emperor, who in a proclamation remarks that “Sung is inadequate to the duties of minister of the imperial presence; because, although he formerly officiated as such, he is now upward of seventy years of age, and rides badly on horseback;” he is therefore sent to Manchuria to fill his old office of captain-general. The next year the ex-minister and his adherents were involved in a long trial about the loss of a seal, and he was deprived of his command and directed to retire to his own Banner; the real reasons of this disgrace were probably connected with the change of parties ensuent upon the accession of Taukwang.

Soon afterward Sung was restored to favor and made adjutant at Jeh ho, after having been president of the Censorate for a month. He was allowed to remain there longer than usual, and employed his spare time in writing a book upon the newly acquired territory in Turkestan. In 1824 he was reinstated as president of the Censorate, with admonitions not to confuse and puzzle himself with a multiplicity of extraneous matters. In 1826 he was sent on a special commission to Shansí, and when he returned was honored with a dinner at court on new year’s day. He then appears as travelling tutor to the crown-prince, but where his royal highness went for his education does not appear; from this post we find him made president of the Board of Rites, and appointed to inspect the victims for a state sacrifice. He is then ordered to Jeh ho, from whence, in a fit of penitence, or perhaps from fear of a dun, he memorialized the Emperor about a debt of $52,000 he had incurred nearly thirty years before, which he proposed to liquidate by foregoing his salary of $1,000 until the arrears were paid up; the Emperor was in good humor with the old man, and forgave him the whole amount, being assured, he says, of Sung’s pure official character. In this memorial, when recounting his services, the aged officer says that he has been twice commander-in-chief and governor of Ílí, governor-general at Nanking, Canton, etc., but had never saved much.

Shortly after this he is recalled from Jeh ho and made _tí-tuh_ of Peking, then president of the Board of War; and in a few months he is ordered to proceed across the desert to Cobdo to investigate some affair of importance--a long and toilsome journey of fifteen hundred miles for a man over seventy-five years old. He returned the next year and resumed his post as president of the Board of War, in which capacity he acted as examiner of the students in the Russian College. In 1831 he was made president of the Colonial Office, and later received an appointment as superintendent of the Three Treasuries, but was obliged to resign from ill health. A month’s relaxation seems to have wonderfully restored him, for the Emperor, in reply to his petition for employment, expresses surprise that he should so soon be fit for official duties, and plainly intimates his opinion that the disease was all sham, though he accedes to his request so far as to nominate him commander of one of the eight Banners. In 1832 Sung again became involved in intrigues, and was reduced to the third degree of rank; the resignation of Tohtsin and the struggle for the vacant premiership was probably the real reason of this new reverse, though a frivolous accusation of two years’ standing was trumped up against him. He was restored again, after a few months’ disgrace, at the petition of a beg of a city in Turkestan, which illustrates, by the way, the influence which those princes exert. Old age now began to come upon the courtier in good earnest, and in 1833 he was ordered to retire with the rank and pay of adjutant, which he lived to enjoy only two years. Much of the success of Sung was said to be owing to his having had a daughter in the harem, but his personal character and kindness were evidently the main sources of his enduring influence among all ranks of people and officers; one account says the Manchus almost worshipped him, and beggars clung to his chair in the streets to ask alms. It is worthy of notice that in all his reverses there is no mention made of any severer punishment than degradation or banishment, and in this particular the political life of Sung is probably a fair criterion of the usual fortune of high Chinese statesmen. The leading events in the life of Changling, the successor of Tohtsin, together with a few notices of the governor of Canton in 1833, Lí Hung-pin, are given in the _Repository_.[244]

~NOTICE OF COMMISSIONER LIN.~

Commissioners Lin and Kíying became more famous among foreigners than their compeers in the capital, from the parts they acted in the war with England in 1840, but only a few notices of their lives are accessible. Lin Tseh-sü was born in 1785, in Fuhchau, and passed through the literary examinations, becoming a graduate of the second rank at the age of nineteen, and of the third when twenty-six. After filling an office or two in the Imperial Academy, he was sent as assistant literary examiner to Kiangsí in 1816, and during three subsequent years acted as examiner and censor in various places. In 1819 he filled the office of intendant of circuit, in Chehkiang; and after absence on account of health, he was, in 1823, appointed to the post of treasurer of Kiangsu, in the absence of the incumbent. In 1826 he was made overseer of the Yellow River, but hearing of his mother’s death, resigned his office to mourn for her. After the period of mourning was finished he went to Peking and received the office of judge in Shensí; but before he had been in it a month he was made treasurer of Kiangsu, and before he could enter upon this new office he heard of his father’s death, and was obliged to resign once more. In 1832 he was nominated treasurer in Hupeh, and five months later transferred to the same office in Honan, and six months after that sent to Kiangsu again. Three months after this third transfer he was reinstated overseer of the Yellow River, and within a short time elevated to be governor of Kiangsí, which he retained three years, and acted as governor-general of Liang Kiang two years more. In 1838 he was made governor-general of Hu Kwang; and shortly after this ordered to come to Peking to be admitted to an imperial audience, and by special favor permitted to ride on horseback within the palace.

He was at this audience appointed imperial commissioner to put down the opium trade and manage the affairs of the maritime frontier of Kwantung, receiving at the time such plenipotentiary powers to act for the Emperor as had only once before been committed to a subject since 1644, viz., when Changling was sent to Turkestan to quell the insurrection. Lin’s ill success in dealing with the opium trade and its upholders in the British government reflect no discredit on his own ability, for the task was beyond the powers of the Empire; but his fame even now stands high among the Cantonese. One incident showing his kindness to the crew of the Sunda, an English vessel lost on Hainan Island, on their arrival in Canton in October, 1839, while he was fighting their consular officers, gave a good insight into the candor of the man. In December, 1839, he was appointed governor-general of Liang Kiang; but succeeded to that of Liang Kwang in February, 1840. In October of the same year the seals of office were taken away, and he was ordered to return to Peking. He remained, however, till May of the next year to advise with Kíshen in his difficult negotiations with the English. Lin left Canton in May, 1841, leading two thousand troops to defend Ningpo, but this rôle was not his forte. In July, 1842, he was banished to Ílí, but the sentence was suspended for a season by giving him a third time the oversight of the Yellow River. However, in 1844 we find him in Ílí, holding an inferior appointment and trying to bring waste lands near the Mohammedan cities under cultivation; his zeal was rewarded the next year by a pardon, and the year after that by the high post of governor-general of Shensí and Kansuh, in which region he set himself to work to reform the civil service and increase the revenue. In 1847 the cares of office wore upon him, so that he asked for a furlough and went back to Fuhchau, aged sixty-two. His ambition was not yet satisfied, for he was made governor-general in Yunnan in 1848, but his strength was not equal to its duties, and he again retired in 1849. The young Emperor Hienfung, startled at the rapid rise of the Tai-ping rebels, applied to the aged statesman to help him as he had his father. Lin responded to the call of his sovereign, but death came upon him before he reached Kwangsí, on the 22d of November, 1850, at the age of sixty-seven. More enduring than some of his official acts was the preparation and publication of the _History of Maritime Nations_, with maps, in fifty books, in which he gave his countrymen all the details he could gather of other nations.[245]

~CAREER OF COMMISSIONER KÍYING.~

Much less is known of the official life of Kíying than of Lin, but the Manchu proved himself superior to the Chinese in trimming his course to meet the inevitable and avoid the rocks his predecessor struck. In 1835 his name is mentioned as president of the Board of Revenue and controller of the Tsung-jin fu. He was detained at the capital as commander-in-chief of the forces there until 1842, when his Majesty sent him to Canton to take the place of Yihshan. He was ordered to stop at Hangchau, however, on his way, and make a report of the condition of affairs; his memorials seem to have had great influence, for he was appointed joint commissioner with Ílípu in April of that year. At the negotiations of Nanking Kíying acted as chief commissioner, and was mainly instrumental in bringing the war to a conclusion. He proceeded to Canton in May, 1843, to succeed Ílípu, and there acted as sole commissioner in negotiating the supplementary treaty and the commercial regulations with the British, returning to the capital in December, 1843. His prudence and vigor had great effect in calming the irritation of the people of Canton. On the arrival of the American plenipotentiary he was vested with full powers to treat with Mr. Cushing, and soon after with the French and Swedish envoys, with all of whom he signed treaties. During the progress of these negotiations Kí Kung died and Kíying succeeded him.

His administration as governor-general continued till January, 1848, when he returned to Peking to receive higher honors from the Emperor. In 1849 he went to Kiangsu to inquire into the salt department, and then to Northern Shansí to settle differences with the Mongols. From this period he held various posts in the cabinet and capital, busy in all court intrigues, and rather losing his good name, till he fell into disgrace. In 1856, when the envoys of the four western Powers were at Tientsin, he entered into some underhand dealings against the policy of Kweiliang and Hwashana, and was sent there as joint commissioner. He had hardly entered upon his functions by the presentation of his commission, when he suddenly returned to Peking against the Emperor’s will, and was ordered to take poison in the presence of the head of the Clan to avoid the ignominy of a public execution.[246] Few Chinese statesmen in modern times have borne a higher character for prudence, dignity, and intelligence than Kíying, and the confidence reposed in him is creditable to his imperial master. In his demeanor, says Sir Thomas Wade, “there was a combination of dignity and courtesy which more than balanced the deficiencies of a by no means attractive exterior.” The portrait of him has been engraved from a native painting made at Canton, and is a good one. It was kindly furnished for this work by J. R. Peters, Jr.

~AGED STATESMEN RETAINED IN OFFICE.~

The facts of this man’s career are not all known, but his connection by birth with the Clan brought him into an entirely different set of influences from Lin, while his training removed him from the contact with the people which made the other so popular and influential. Both of them were good instances of Chinese statesmen, and their checkered lives as here briefly noticed resemble that of their compeers in the highest grades of official dignity. The sifting which the personnel of the Emperor’s employees in all their various grades receive generally brings the cleverest and most trustworthy to the top; no one can come in contact with them in state affairs without an increase of respect for their shrewdness, loyalty, and skill. One observable feature of the Chinese political world is the great age of the high officers, and it is not easy to account for their being kept in their posts, when almost worn out, by a monarch who wished to have efficient men around him, until we learn how little real power he can arbitrarily exert over the details of the branches of his government. It is somewhat explainable on the ground that, as long as the old incumbents are alive, the Emperor, being more habituated to their company and advice, prefers to retain those whose competency has been proven by their service. The patriarch, kept near the Emperor, is moreover a kind of hostage for the loyalty of his following; and the latter, scattered throughout the provinces, can be managed and moved about through him with less opposition: he is, still further, a convenient medium through which to receive the exactions of the younger members of the service, and convey such intimations as are thought necessary. The system of clientelage which existed among the Gauls and Franks is also found in China with some modifications, and has a tendency to link officers to one another in parties of different degrees of power. The Emperor published an order in 1833 against this system of patronage, and it is evident that he would find it seriously interfering with his power were it not constantly broken up by changing the relations of the parties and sending them away in different directions. Peking is almost the only place where the “teacher and pupils,” as the patron and client call each other, could combine to much purpose; and the principal safeguard the throne seems to have against intrigues and parties around it lies in the conflicting interests arising among themselves, though a long-established or unscrupulous favorite, as in the cases of Duke Ho and Suhshun in 1855-61, can sometimes manage to engross the whole power of the crown.

~VALEDICTORY VERSES OF GOVERNOR CHU.~

Notwithstanding the heavy charges of oppression, cruelty, bribery, and mendacity which are often brought against officers with more or less justice, it must not be inferred that no good qualities exist among them. Thousands of them desire to rule equitably, to clear the innocent and punish the guilty, and exert all the knowledge and power they possess to discharge their functions to the acceptance of their master and their own good name among the inhabitants. Such officers, too, generally rise, while the cruelties of others are visited with degradation. The pasquinades which the people stick up in the streets indicate their sentiments, and receive much more attention than would such vulgar expressions in other countries, because it is almost the only way in which their opinions can be safely uttered. The popularity which upright officers receive acts as an incentive to others to follow in the same steps, as well as a reward to the person himself. The governor of Kwangtung in 1833, Chu, was a very popular officer, and when he obtained leave to resign his station on account of age, the people vied with each other in showing their hearty regret at losing him. The old custom was observed of retaining his boots and presenting him with a new pair at every city he passed through, and many other testimonials of their regard were adopted. On leaving the city of Canton he circulated a few verses, “to console the people and excite them to virtue,” for he heard that some of them wept on learning of his departure.

From ancient days, my fathers trod the path Of literary fame, and placed their names Among the wise; two generations past, Attendant on their patrons, they have come To this provincial city.[247] Here this day ’Tis mine to be imperial envoy; Thus has the memory of ancestral fame Ceased not to stimulate this feeble frame.

My father held an office at Lungchau,[248] And deep imprinted his memorial there; He was the sure and generous friend Of learning unencouraged and obscure. When now I turn my head and travel back In thought to that domestic hall, it seems As yesterday, those early happy scenes-- How was he pained if forced to be severe!

From times remote Kwangtung has been renowned For wise and mighty men; but none can stand Among them, or compare with Kiuh Kiang:[249] Three idle and inglorious years are past, And I have raised no monument of fame, By shedding round the rays of light and truth, To give the people knowledge. In this heart I feel the shame, and cannot bear the thought.

But now, in flowered pavilions, in street Illuminations, gaudy shows, to praise The gods and please themselves, from year to year The modern people vie, and boast themselves, And spend their hard-earned wealth--and all in vain; For what shall be the end? Henceforth let all Maintain an active and a useful life, The sober husband and the frugal wife.

The gracious statesman,[250] politic and wise, Is my preceptor and my long-tried friend; Called now to separate, spare our farewell The heartrending words affection so well loves. That he may still continue to exhort The people, and instruct them to be wise, To practice virtue and to keep the laws Of ancient sages, is my constant hope.

When I look backward o’er the field of fame Where I have travelled a long fifty years, The struggle for ambition and the sweat For gain seem altogether vanity. Who knoweth not that heaven’s toils are close, Infinitely close? Few can escape. Ah! how few great men reach a full old age! How few unshorn of honors end their days!

Inveterate disease has twined itself Around me, and binds me in slavery. The kindness of his Majesty is high[251] And liberal, admitting no return Unless a grateful heart; still, still my eyes Will see the miseries of the people-- Unlimited distresses, mournful, sad, To the mere passer-by awaking grief.

Untalented, unworthy, I withdraw, Bidding farewell to this windy, dusty world; Upward I look to the supremely good-- The Emperor--to choose a virtuous man To follow me. Henceforth it will be well-- The measures and the merits passing mine; But I shall silent stand and see his grace Diffusing blessings like the genial spring.

Ílípu, Kí Kung, the late governor-general of Kwangtung, and Shu, the prefect of Ningpo in 1842, are other officers who have been popular in late years. When Lin passed through Macao in 1839, the Chinese had in several places erected honorary portals adorned with festoons of silk and laudatory scrolls; and when he passed the doors of their houses and shops they set out tables decorated with vases of flowers, “in order to manifest their profound gratitude for his coming to save them from a deadly vice, and for removing from them a dire calamity by the destruction and severe interdiction of opium.” Alas, that his efforts and intentions should have been so fruitless!

~OFFICIAL PETITIONS AND CONFESSIONS.~

The _Peking Gazette_ frequently contains petitions from old officers describing their ailments, their fear lest they shall not be able to perform their duties, the length of their official service, and requesting leave of absence or permission to retire. It is impossible to regard all the expressions of loyalty in these papers, coming as they do from every class of officers, as heartless and made out according to a prescribed form; but we are too ready to measure them by our own standard and fashion, forgetting that it is not the defects of a system which give the best standard of its value and efficiency. Let us rather, as an honest expression of feeling, quote a few lines from a memorial of Shí, a censor in 1824: “Reflecting within myself that, notwithstanding the decay of my strength, it has still pleased the imperial goodness to employ me in a high office instead of rejecting and discarding me at once, I have been most anxious to effect a cure, in order that, a weak old horse as I am, it might be still in my power, by the exertion of my whole strength, to recompense a ten-thousandth part of the benevolence which restored me to life.”[252]

Connected with the triennial schedule of official merits and demerits is the necessity the high officers of state are under of confessing their faults of government; and the two form a peculiar and somewhat stringent check upon their intrigues and malversation, making them, as Le Comte observes, “exceeding circumspect and careful, and sometimes even virtuous against their own inclinations.” The confessions reported in the _Peking Gazette_ are, however, by no means satisfactory as to the real extent or nature of these acts; most of the confessors are censors, and perhaps it is in virtue of their office that they thus sit in judgment upon themselves. Examples of the crimes mentioned are not wanting. The governor-general of Chihlí requested severe punishment in 1832 for not having discovered a plotting demagogue who had collected several thousand adherents in his and the next provinces; his request was granted. An admiral in the same province demands punishment for not having properly educated his son, as thereby he went mad and wounded several people. Another calls for judgment upon himself because the Empress-dowager had been kept waiting at the palace gate by the porters when she paid her Majesty a visit. One officer accused himself for not being able to control the Yellow River; and his Majesty’s cook in 1830 requested punishment for being too late in presenting his bill of fare, but was graciously forgiven. The rarity of these confessions, compared with the actual sins, shows either that they are, like a partridge’s doublings, made to draw off attention from the real nest of malversation, or that few officers are willing to undergo the mortification.

The Emperor, in his character of vicegerent of heaven, occasionally imposes the duty of self-confession upon himself. Kiaking issued several public confessions during his reign, but the _Gazette_ has not contained many such papers within the last thirty years. These confessions are drawn from him more by natural calamities, such as drought, freshets, epidemics, etc., than by political causes, though insurrections, fires, ominous portents, etc., sometimes induce them. The personal character of the monarch has much to do with their frequency and phraseology. On occasion of a drought in 1817 the Emperor Kiaking said: “The remissness and sloth of the officers of government constitute an evil which has long been accumulating. It is not the evil of a day; for several years I have given the most pressing admonitions on the subject, and have punished many cases which have been discovered, so that recently there appears a little improvement, and for several seasons the weather has been favorable. The drought this season is not perhaps entirely on their (the officers’) account. I have meditated upon it, and am persuaded that the reason why the azure Heavens above manifest disapprobation by withholding rain for a few hundred miles only around the capital, is that the fifty and more rebels who escaped are secreted somewhere near Peking. Hence it is that fertile vapors are fast bound, and the felicitous harmony of the seasons interrupted.” On the 14th of May, 1818, between five and six o’clock in the evening, a sudden darkness enveloped the capital, attended by a violent wind from the southeast and much rain. During its action two intervals occurred when the sky became a lurid red and the air offensive, terrible claps of thunder startling the people and frightening the monarch. His astrologers could not relieve his forebodings of evil, and he issued a manifesto to explain the matter to his subjects and discharge his own conscience. One sentence is worth quoting: “Calumnious accusations cause the ruin and death of a multitude of innocent people; they alone are capable of provoking a sign as terrible as this one just seen. The wind coming from the southeast is proof enough that some great crime has been committed in that region, which the officials, by neglecting their duties, have ignored, and thereby excited the ire of Heaven.”[253]

~PRAYER FOR RAIN OF TAUKWANG.~

One of the most remarkable specimens of these papers is a prayer for rain issued by Taukwang, July 24, 1832, on occasion of a severe drought at the capital. Before publishing this paper he had endeavored to mollify the anger and heat of heaven by ordering all suspected and accused persons in the prisons of the metropolis to be tried, and their guilt or innocence established, in order that the course of justice might not be delayed, and witnesses be released from confinement. But these vicarious corrections did not avail, and the drought continuing, he was obliged, as high-priest of the Empire, to show the people that he was mindful of their sufferings, and would relieve them, if possible, by presenting the following memorial:

“Kneeling, a memorial is hereby presented, to cause affairs to be heard.

“Oh, alas! imperial Heaven, were not the world afflicted by extraordinary changes, I would not dare to present extraordinary services. But this year the drought is most unusual. Summer is past, and no rain has fallen. Not only do agriculture and human beings feel the dire calamity, but also beasts and insects, herbs and trees, almost cease to live. I, the minister of Heaven, am placed over mankind, and am responsible for keeping the world in order and tranquillizing the people. Although it is now impossible for me to sleep or eat with composure, although I am scorched with grief and tremble with anxiety, still, after all, no genial and copious showers have been obtained.

“Some days ago I fasted, and offered rich sacrifices on the altars of the gods of the land and the grain, and had to be thankful for gathering clouds and slight showers; but not enough to cause gladness. Looking up, I consider that Heaven’s heart is benevolence and love. The sole cause is the daily deeper atrocity of my sins; but little sincerity and little devotion. Hence I have been unable to move Heaven’s heart, and bring down abundant blessings.

“Having searched the records, I find that in the twenty-fourth year of Kienlung my exalted Ancestor, the Emperor Pure, reverently performed a ‘great snow service.’ I feel impelled, by ten thousand considerations, to look up and imitate the usage, and with trembling anxiety rashly assail Heaven, examine myself, and consider my errors; looking up and hoping that I may obtain pardon. I ask myself whether in sacrificial services I have been disrespectful? Whether or not pride and prodigality have had a place in my heart, springing forth there unobserved? Whether, from length of time, I have become remiss in attending to the affairs of government, and have been unable to attend to them with that serious diligence and strenuous effort which I ought? Whether I have uttered irreverent words, and have deserved reprehension? Whether perfect equity has been attained in conferring rewards or inflicting punishments? Whether in raising mausolea and laying out gardens I have distressed the people and wasted property? Whether in the appointment of officers I have failed to obtain fit persons, and thereby the acts of government have been petty and vexatious to the people? Whether punishments have been unjustly inflicted or not? Whether the oppressed have found no means of appeal? Whether in persecuting heterodox sects the innocent have not been involved? Whether or not the magistrates have insulted the people and refused to listen to their affairs? Whether, in the successive military operations on the western frontiers, there may not have been the horrors of human slaughter for the sake of imperial rewards? Whether the largesses bestowed on the afflicted southern provinces were properly applied, or the people were left to die in the ditches? Whether the efforts to exterminate or pacify the rebellious mountaineers of Hunan and Kwangtung were properly conducted; or whether they led to the inhabitants being trampled on as mire and ashes? To all these topics to which my anxieties have been directed I ought to lay the plumb-line, and strenuously endeavor to correct what is wrong; still recollecting that there may be faults which have not occurred to me in my meditations.

“Prostrate I beg imperial Heaven (_Hwang Tien_) to pardon my ignorance and stupidity, and to grant me self-renovation; for myriads of innocent people are involved by me, the One man. My sins are so numerous it is difficult to escape from them. Summer is past and autumn arrived; to wait longer will really be impossible. Knocking head, I pray imperial Heaven to hasten and confer gracious deliverance--a speedy and divinely beneficial rain, to save the people’s lives and in some degree redeem my iniquities. Oh, alas! imperial Heaven, observe these things. Oh, alas! imperial Heaven, be gracious to them. I am inexpressibly grieved, alarmed, and frightened. Reverently this memorial is presented.”[254]

This paper apparently intimates some acknowledgment of a ruling power above, and before a despot like the Emperor of China would place himself in such an equivocal posture before his people, he would assure himself very thoroughly of their sentiments; for its effects as a state paper would be worse than null if the least ridicule was likely to be thrown upon it. In this case heavy showers followed the same evening, and appropriate thanksgivings were ordered and oblations presented before the six altars of heaven, earth, land, and grain, and the gods of heaven, earth, and the revolving year.

~METHODS OF PUBLISHING EDICTS.~

The orders of the court are usually transmitted in manuscript, except when some grand event or state ceremony requires a general proclamation, in which cases the document is printed on yellow paper and published in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, encircled with a border of dragons. The governors and their subordinates, imperial commissioners, and collectors of customs are the principal officers in the provinces who publish their orders to the people, consisting of admonitions, exhortations, regulations, laws, special ordinances, threatenings, and municipal requirements. Standing laws and local regulations are often superbly carved on tablets of black marble, and placed in the streets to be “held in everlasting remembrance,” so that no one can plead ignorance; a custom which recalls the mode of publishing the Twelve Tables at Rome. Several of these monuments, beautifully ornamented, are to be seen at Canton and Macao. The usual mode of publishing the commands of government is to print the document in large characters, and post copies at the door of the offices and in the streets in public places, with the seal of the officer attached to authenticate them. The sheets on which they are printed being common bamboo paper, and having no protection from the weather, are, however, soon destroyed; the people read them as they are thus exposed, and copy them if they wish, but it is not uncommon, too, for the magistrates to print important edicts in pamphlet form for circulation. These placards are written in an official style, differing from common writing as much as that does in English, but not involved or obscure. A single specimen of an edict issued at Canton will suffice to illustrate the form of such papers, and moreover show upon what subjects a Chinese ruler sometimes legislates, and the care he is expected to take of the people.

~EDICT FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF GRASSHOPPERS.~

“Sü and Hwang, by special appointment magistrates of the districts of Nanhai and Pwanyu, raised ten steps and recorded ten times, hereby distinctly publish important rules for the capture of grasshoppers, that it may be known how to guard against them in order to ward off injury and calamity. On the 7th day of the 8th month in the 13th year of Taukwang [September 20, 1833], we received a communication from the prefect of the [department of Kwangchau], transmitting a despatch from their excellencies the governor-general and governor, as follows:

“‘During the fifth month of the present year flights of grasshoppers appeared in the limits of Kwangsí, in [the departments of] Liu, Tsin, Kwei, and Wu, and their vicinage, which have already, according to report, been clean destroyed and driven off. We have heard that in the department of Kauchau and its neighborhood, conterminous to Kwangsí, grasshoppers have appeared which multiply with extreme rapidity. At this time the second crop is in the blade (which if destroyed will endamage the people), and it is proper, therefore, immediately, wherever they are found, to capture and drive them off, marshalling the troops to advance and wholly exterminate them. But Kwangtung heretofore has never experienced this calamity, and we apprehend the officers and people do not understand the mode of capture; wherefore we now exhibit in order the most important rules for catching grasshoppers. Let the governor’s combined forces be immediately instructed to capture them _secundum artem_; at the same time let orders be issued for the villagers and farmers at once to assemble and take them, and for the magistrate to establish storehouses for their reception and purchase, thus without fail sweeping them clean away. If you do not exert yourselves to catch the grasshoppers, your guilt will be very great; let it be done carefully, not clandestinely delaying, thus causing this misfortune to come upon yourselves, transgressing the laws, and causing us again, according to the exigencies of the case, to promulgate general orders and make thorough examination, etc., etc. Appended hereto are copies of the rules for catching grasshoppers, which from the lieutenant-governor must be sent to the treasurer, who will enjoin it upon the magistrates of the departments, and he again upon the district magistrates.’

“Having received the preceding, besides respectfully transmitting it to the colonel of the department to be straightway forwarded to all the troops under his authority, and also to all the district justices, that they all with united purpose bend their energies to observe, at the proper time, that whenever the grasshoppers become numerous they join their forces and extirpate them, thus removing calamity from the people; we also enjoin upon whomsoever receives this that the grasshoppers be caught according to these several directions, which are therefore here arranged in order as follows:

“‘1. When the grasshoppers first issue forth they are to be seen on the borders of large morasses, from whence they quickly multiply and fill large tracts of land; they produce their young in little hillocks of black earth, using the tail to bore into the ground, not quite an inch in depth, which still remain as open holes, the whole somewhat resembling a bee’s nest. One grasshopper drops ten or more pellets, in form like a pea, each one containing a hundred or more young. For the young grasshoppers fly and eat in swarms, and this laying of their young is done all at once and in the same spot; the place resembles a hive of bees, and therefore it is very easily sought and found.

“‘2. When the grasshoppers are in the fields of wheat and tender rice and the thick grass, every day at early dawn they all alight on the leaves of the grass, and their bodies being covered with dew are heavy and they cannot fly or hop; at noon they begin to assemble for flight, and at evening they collect in one spot. Thus each day there are three periods when they can be caught, and the people and gentry will also have a short respite. The mode of catching them is to dig a trench before them, the broader and longer the better, on each side placing boards, doors, screens, and such like things, one stretched on after another, and spreading open each side. The whole multitude must then cry aloud, and, holding boards in their hands, drive them all into the trench; meanwhile those on the opposite side, provided with brooms and rakes, on seeing any leaping or crawling out, must sweep them back; then covering them with dry grass, burn them all up. Let the fire be first kindled in the trench, and then drive them into it; for if they are only buried up, then many of them will crawl out of the openings and so escape.

“‘3. When the swarms of grasshoppers see a row of trees, or a close line of flags and streamers, they usually hover over and settle; and the farmers frequently suspend red and white clothes and petticoats on long poles, or make red and green paper flags, but they do not always settle with great rapidity. Moreover, they dread the noise of gongs, matchlocks, and guns, hearing which they fly away. If they come so as to obscure the heavens, you must let off the guns and clang the gongs, or fire the crackers; it will strike the front ranks with dread, and flying away, the rest will follow them and depart.

“‘4. When the wings and legs of the grasshoppers are taken off, and [their bodies] dried in the sun, the taste is like dried prawns, and moreover, they can be kept a long time without spoiling. Ducks can also be reared upon the dried grasshoppers, and soon become large and fat. Moreover, the hill people catch them to feed pigs; these pigs, weighing at first only twenty catties or so, in ten days’ time grow to weigh more than fifty catties; and in rearing all domestic animals they are of use. Let all farmers exert themselves and catch them alive, giving rice or money according to the number taken. In order to remove this calamity from your grain, what fear is there that you will not perform this? Let all these rules for catching the grasshoppers be diligently carried into full effect.’

“Wherefore these commands are transcribed that all you soldiers and people may be fully acquainted with them. Do you all then immediately in obedience to them, when you see the proper time has come, sound the gong; and when you see the grasshoppers and their young increasing, straightway get ready, on the one hand seizing them, and on the other announcing to the officers that they collect the troops, that with united strength you may at once catch them, without fail making an utter extermination of them; thus calamity will be removed from the people. We will also then confer rewards upon those of the farmers and people who first announce to the magistrates their approach. Let every one implicitly obey. A special command.

“Promulgated Taukwang, 13th year, 8th month, and 15th day.”[255]

~CHARACTER AND PHRASEOLOGY OF THE EDICTS.~

The concluding part of an edict affords some room for displaying the character of the promulgator. Among other endings are such as these: “Hasten! hasten! a special edict.” “Tremble hereat intensely.” “Lay not up for yourselves future repentance by disobedience.” “I will by no means eat my words.” “Earnestly observe these things.” In their state papers Chinese officers are constantly referring to ultimate truths and axioms, and deducing arguments therefrom in a peculiarly national grandiloquent manner, though some of their conclusions are preposterous non-sequiturs. Commissioner Lin addressed a letter to the Queen of England regarding the interdiction of opium, which began with the following preamble:

“Whereas, the ways of Heaven are without partiality, and no sanction is allowed to injure others in order to benefit one’s self, and that men’s natural feelings are not very diverse (for where is he who does not abhor death and love life?)--therefore your honorable nation, though beyond the wide ocean at a distance of twenty thousand _lí_, also acknowledges the same ways of Heaven, the same human nature, and has the like perceptions of the distinctions between life and death, benefit and injury. Our heavenly court has for its family all that is within the four seas; and as to the great Emperor’s heaven-like benevolence--there is none whom it does not overshadow; even regions remote, desert, and disconnected have a part in his general care of life and well-being.”

The edicts furnish almost the only exponents of the intentions of government. They present several characteristic features of the ignorant conceit and ridiculous assumptions of the Chinese, while they betray the real weakness of the authorities in the mixture of argument and command, coaxing and threatening, pervading every paragraph. According to their phraseology, there can possibly be no failure in the execution of every order; if they are once made known, the obedience of the people follows almost as a matter of course; while at the same time both the writer and the people know that most of them are not only perfunctory but nearly useless. The responsibility of the writer in a measure ceases with the promulgation of his orders, and when they reach the last in the series their efficiency has well nigh departed. Expediency is the usual guide for obedience; deceiving superiors and oppressing the people the rule of action on the part of many officials; and their orders do not more strikingly exhibit their weakness and ignorance than their mendacity and conceit. A large proportion of well-meaning officers are sensible too that all their efforts will be neutralized by the half-paid, unscrupulous retainers and clerks in the _yamuns_; and this checks their energy.

It is not easy, without citing many examples accompanied with particular explanations, to give a just idea of the actual execution of the laws, and show how far the people are secured in life and property by their rulers; and perhaps nothing has been the source of such differing views regarding the Chinese as the predominance writers give either to the theory or the practice of legislation. Old Magaillans has hit this point pretty well when he says: “It seems as if the legislators had omitted nothing, and that they had foreseen all inconveniences that were to be feared; so that I am persuaded no kingdom in the world could be better governed or more happy, if the conduct and probity of the officers were but answerable to the institution of the government. But in regard they have no knowledge of the true God, nor of the eternal rewards and punishments of the other world, they are subject to no remorses of conscience, they place all their happiness in pleasure, in dignity and riches; and therefore, to obtain these fading advantages, they violate all the laws of God and man, trampling under foot religion, reason, justice, honesty, and all the rights of consanguinity and friendship. The inferior officers mind nothing but how to defraud their superiors, they the supreme tribunals, and all together how to cheat the king; which they know how to do with so much cunning and address, making use in their memorials of words and expressions so soft, so honest, so respectful, so humble and full of adulation, and of reasons so plausible, that the deluded prince frequently takes the greatest falsehoods for solemn truths. So that the people, finding themselves continually oppressed and overwhelmed without any reason, murmur and raise seditions and revolts, which have caused so much ruin and so many changes in the Empire. Nevertheless, there is no reason that the excellency and perfection of the laws of China should suffer for the depravity and wickedness of the magistrates.”[256]

~EXTORTIONS PRACTISED BY MAGISTRATES.~

Magaillans resided in China nearly forty years, and his opinion may be considered on the whole as a fair judgment of the real condition of the people and the policy of their rulers. When one is living in the country itself, to hear the complaints of individuals against the extortion and cruelty of their rulers, and to read the reports of judicial murder, torture, and crime in the _Peking Gazette_, are enough to cause one to wonder how such atrocities and oppressions are endured from year to year, and why the sufferers do not rise and throw aside the tyrannous power which thus abuses them. But the people are generally conscious that their rulers are no better than themselves, and that they would really gain nothing by such a procedure, and their desire to maintain as great a degree of peace as possible leads them to submit to many evils, which in western countries would soon be remedied or cause a revolution. In order to restrain the officers in their misrule, Section CCX. of the code ordains that “If any officer of government, whose situation gives him power and control over the people, not only does not conciliate them by proper indulgence, but exercises his authority in a manner so inconsistent with the established laws and approved usages of the Empire, that the sentiments of the once loyal subjects being changed by his oppressive conduct, they assemble tumultuously and openly rebel, and drive him at length from the capital city and seat of his government; such officer shall suffer death.”

By the laws of China, every officer of the nine ranks must be previously qualified for duty by a degree; in the ninth are included village magistrates, deputy treasurers, jailers, etc., but the police, local interpreters, clerks, and other attendants on the courts are not considered as having any rank, and most of them are natives of the place where they are employed. The only degradation they can feel is to turn them out of their stations, but this is hardly a palliative of the evils the people suffer from them; the new leech is more thirsty than the old. The cause of many of the extortions the people suffer from their rulers is found in the system of purchasing office, at all times practised in one shape or other, but occasionally resorted to by the government. As the counterpart of this system, that of receiving bribes must be expected therefore to prevail, and being in fact practised by all grades of dignitaries, and sometimes even upheld by them as a “necessary evil,” it adds still more to the bad consequences resulting from this mode of obtaining office. Indeed, so far is the practice of “covering the eyes” carried in China, that the people seldom approach their rulers without a gift to make way for them.

One mode taken by the highest ranks to obtain money is to notify inferiors that there are certain days on which presents are expected, and custom soon increases these as much as the case will admit. Subscriptions for objects of public charity or disbursements, such as an inundation, a bad harvest, bursting of dikes, and other similar things which the government must look after, are not unfrequently made a source of revenue to the incumbents by requiring much more than is needed; those who subscribe are rewarded by an empty title, a peacock’s feather, or employment in some insignificant formality. The sale of titular rank is a source of revenue, but the government never attempts to subvert or interfere with the well-known channel of attaining office by literary merit, and it seldom confers much real power for money when unconnected with some degree of fitness. The security of its own position is not to be risked for the sake of an easy means of filling its exchequer, yet it is impossible to say how far the sale of office and title is carried. The censors inveigh against it, and the Emperor almost apologizes for resorting to it, but it is nevertheless constantly practised. The government stocks of this description were opened during the late rebellions and foreign wars, as the necessities of the case were a sufficient excuse for the disreputable practice. In 1835 the sons of two of the leading hong-merchants were promoted, in consequence of their donations of $25,000 each to repair the ravages of an inundation; subscribers to the amount of $10,000 and upward were rewarded by an honorary title, whose only privilege is that it saves its possessor from a bambooing, it being the law that no one holding any office can be personally chastised.[257]

~AGENTS AND MODES OF OFFICIAL EXACTION.~

Besides the lower officers, the clerks in their employ and the police, who are often taken from the garrison soldiery, are the agents in the hands of the upper ranks to squeeze the people. There are many clerks of various duties and grades about all the offices who receive small salaries, and every application and petition to their superiors, going through their hands, is attended by a bribe to pass them up. The military police and servants connected with the offices are not paid any regular salary, and their number is great. In the large districts, like those of Nanhai and Pwanyu, which compose the city of Canton and suburbs, it is said there are about a thousand unpaid police; in the middle-sized ones between three and four hundred, and in the smallest from one to two hundred. This number is increased by the domestics attending high officers as part of their suite, and by their old acquaintances, who make themselves known when there is any likelihood of being employed. Among other abuses mentioned by the censors is that of magistrates appointing their own creatures to fill vacancies until those nominated by his Majesty arrive; like a poor man oppressing the poor, such officers are a sweeping rain. A similar abuse arises when country magistrates leave their posts to go to the provincial capital to dance attendance upon their superiors, and get nominated to a higher place or taken into their service as secretaries, because they will work for nothing; the duties of their vacated offices are meantime usually left undone, and underlings take advantage of their absence to make new exactions. The governor fills vacant offices with his own friends, and recommends them to his Majesty to be confirmed; but this has little effect in consolidating a system of oppression from the constant changes going on. In fact, it is hard to say which feature of the Chinese polity is the least disastrous to good government, these constant changes which neutralize all sympathy with the people on the part of rulers, or on the other hand make it useless for seditious men to try to foment rebellion.

The retinues of high provincial officers contain many dependents and expectant supernumeraries, all subservient to them; among them are the descendants of poor officers; the sons of bankrupt merchants who once possessed influence; dissipated, well bred, unscrupulous men, who lend themselves to everything flagitious; and lastly, fortune-seekers without money, but possessing talents of good order to be used by any one who will hire them. Such persons are not peculiar to China, and their employment is guarded against in the code, but no law is more of a dead letter. Officers of government, too, conscious of their delinquencies, and afraid their posts will soon be taken from them, of course endeavor to make the most of their opportunities, and by means of such persons, who are usually well acquainted with the leading inhabitants of the district, harass and threaten such as are likely to pay well for being left in quiet. It does them little or no good, however, for if they are not removed they must fee their superiors, and if they are punished for their misdeeds they are still more certain of losing their wicked exactions.

In the misappropriation of public funds, and peculation of all kinds in materials, government stores, rations, wages, and salaries, the Chinese officials are skilled experts, and are never surprised at any disclosures.

Another common mode of plundering the people is for officers to collude with bands of thieves, and allow them to escape for a composition when arrested, or substitute other persons for the guilty party in case the real offenders are likely to be condemned. Sometimes these banditti are too strong even for an upright magistrate, and he is obliged to overlook what he cannot remedy; for, however much he may wish to arrest and bring them to justice, his policemen are too much afraid of their vengeance to venture upon attacking them. An instance of this occurred near Canton in 1839, when a boat, containing a clerk of the court and three or four police, came into the fleet of European opium-ships to hunt for some desperate opium smugglers who had taken refuge there. The fellows, hearing of the arrival of the boat, came in the night, and surrounding it took out the crew, bound their pursuers, and burned them alive with the boat in sight of the whole fleet, to whom the desperadoes looked for protection against their justly incensed countrymen.

A censor in 1819, complaining of flagrant neglect in the administration of justice in Chihlí, says: “Among the magistrates are many who, without fear or shame, connive at robbery and deceit. Formerly, horse-stealers were wont to conceal themselves in some secret place, but now they openly bring their plunder to market for sale. When they perceive a person to be weak, they are in the habit of stealing his property and returning it to him for money, while the officers, on hearing it, treat it as a trivial matter, and blame the sufferer for not being more cautious. Thieves are apprehended with warrants on them, showing that when they were sent out to arrest thieves they availed of the opportunity to steal for themselves. And at a village near the imperial residence are very many plunderers concealed, who go out by night in companies of twenty or thirty persons, carrying weapons with them; they frequently call up the inhabitants, break open the doors, and having satisfied themselves with what food and wine they can obtain, they threaten and extort money, which if they cannot procure they seize their clothes, ornaments, or cattle, and depart. They also frequently go to shops, and having broken open the shutters impudently demand money, which if they do not get they set fire to the shop with the torches in their hands. If the master of the house lay hold on a few of them and sends them to the magistrate, he merely imprisons and beats them, and before half a month allows them to run away.”[258]

~VENALITY OF THE POLICE AND CLERKS.~

The unpaid retainers about the _yamuns_ are very numerous, and are more dreaded than the police; one censor says they are looked upon by the people as tigers and wolves; he effected the discharge of nearly twenty-four thousand of them in the province of Chihlí alone. They are usually continued in their places by the head magistrate, who, when he arrives, being ignorant of the characters of those he must employ, re-engages such as are likely to serve. In cases of serious accusation the clerks frequently subpœna all who are likely to be implicated, and demand a fee for liberating them when their innocence is shown. These myrmidons still fear the anger of their superiors and a recoil of the people so far as to endeavor to save appearances by hushing up the matter, and liberating those unjustly apprehended, with great protestations of compassion. It may be added that, as life is not lightly taken, thieves are careful not to murder or maltreat their victims dangerously, nor do the magistrates venture to take life outright by torture, though their cruelties frequently result in death by neglect or starvation. Money and goods are what both policemen and officials want, not blood and revenge. Parties at strife with each other frequently resort to legal implication to gratify their ill-will, and take a pitiful revenge by egging on the police to pillage and vex their enemy, though they themselves profit nowise thereby.

The evils resulting from a half-paid and venal magistracy are dreadful, and the prospects of their removal very slight. The governor of Chihlí, in 1829, memorialized the Emperor upon the state of the police, and pointed out a remedy for many abuses, one of which was to pay them fair salaries out of the public treasury; but it is plain that this remedy must begin with the monarch, for until an officer is released from sopping his superior he will not cease exacting from his inferiors. Experience has shown the authorities how far it can safely be carried; while many officers, seeing how useless it is to irritate the people, so far as ultimately enriching themselves is concerned, endeavor to restrain their policemen. One governor issued an edict, stating that none of his domestics were allowed to browbeat shopmen, and thus get goods or eatables below the market price, and permitted the seller to collar and bring them to him for punishment when they did so. When an officer of high rank, as a governor, treasurer, etc., takes the seals of his post, he ofttimes issues a proclamation, exhorting the subordinate ranks to do as he means to do--“to look up and embody the kindness of the high Emperor,” and attend to the faithful discharge of their duties. The lower officers, in their turn, join in the cry, and a series of proclamations, by turns hortative and mandatory, are echoed from mastiff, spaniel, and poodle, until the cry ends upon the police. Thus the prefect of Canton says: “There are hard-hearted soldiers and gnawing lictors who post themselves at ferries or markets, or rove about the streets, to extort money under various pretexts; or, being intoxicated, they disturb and annoy the people in a hundred ways. Since I came into office here I have repeatedly commanded the inferior magistrates to act faithfully and seize such persons, but the depraved spirit still continues.”

A censor, speaking of the police, says: “They no sooner get a warrant to bring up witnesses than they assail both plaintiff and defendant for money to pay their expenses, from the amount of ten taels to several scores. Then the clerks must have double what the runners get; if their demands be not satisfied they contrive every species of annoyance. Then, again, if there are people of property in the neighborhood, they will implicate them. They plot also with pettifogging lawyers to get up accusations against people, and threaten and frighten them out of their money.”[259]

One natural consequence of such a state of society and such a perversion of justice is to render the people afraid of all contact with the officers of government and exceedingly selfish in all their intercourse, though the latter trait needs no particular training to develop it in any heathen country. It also tends to an inhuman disregard of the life of others, and chills every emotion of kindness which might otherwise arise; for by making a man responsible for the acts of his neighbors, or by involving a whole village in the crimes of an individual, all sense of justice is violated. The terror of being implicated in any evil that takes place sometimes prevents the people from quenching fires until the superior authorities be first informed, and from relieving the distressed until it is often too late. Hence, too, it not unfrequently happens that a man who has had the ill fortune to be stabbed to death in the street, or who falls down from disease and dies, remains on the spot till the putrescence obliges the neighbors, for their own safety, to remove the corpse. A dead body floating down the river and washing ashore is likely to remain on the banks until it again drifts away or the authorities get it buried, for no unofficial person would voluntarily run the risk of being seen interring it. One censor reports that when he asked the people why they did not remove the loathsome object, they said: “We always let the bodies be either buried in the bellies of fishes or devoured by the dogs; for if we inform the magistrates they are sure to make the owner of the ground buy a coffin, and the clerks and assistants distress us in a hundred ways.” The usual end of these memorials and remonstrances is that the police are ordered to behave better, the clerks commanded to abstain from implicating innocent people and retarding the course of justice, and their masters, the magistrates, threatened with the Emperor’s displeasure in case the grievance is not remedied: after which all goes on as before, and will go on as long as both rulers and ruled are what they are.

~EFFECT OF MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY.~

The working out of the principle of responsibility accounts for many things in Chinese society and jurisprudence that otherwise appear completely at variance with even common humanity. It makes an officer careless of his duties if he can shift the responsibility of failure upon his inferiors, who, at the same time, he knows can never execute his orders; it renders the people dead to the impulses of relationship, lest they become involved in what they cannot possibly control and hardly know at the time of its commission. Mr. Lindsay states that when he was at Tsungming in 1832 the officers were very urgent that he should go out of the river, and in order to show him the effect of his non-compliance upon others a degraded subaltern was paraded in his sight. “His cap with its gold button was borne before him, and he marched about blindfolded in procession between two executioners, with a small flag on a bamboo pierced through each ear. Before him was a placard with the inscription, ‘By orders of the general of Su and Sung: for a breach of military discipline, his ears are pierced as a warning to the multitude.’ His offence was having allowed our boat to pass the fort without reporting it.”

During the first war with England, fear of punishment induced many of the subordinates to commit suicide when unable to execute their orders, and the same motive impelled their superiors to avoid the wrath of the Emperor in like fashion. The hong-merchants and linguists at Canton, during the old regime, were constantly liable, from the operation of this principle, to exactions and punishments for the acts of their foreign customers. One of them, Sunshing, was put in prison and ruined because Lord Napier came to Canton from Whampoa in the boat of a ship which the unhappy merchant had “secured” several weeks before, and the linguist and pilot were banished for allowing what they could not possibly have hindered even if they had known it.

Having examined in this general manner the various grades of official rank, we come to the people; and a close view will show that this great mass of human beings exhibits many equally objectionable traits, while oppression, want, clannish rivalry, and brigandage combine to keep it in a constant state of turmoil. The subdivisions into tithings and hundreds are better observed in rural districts than in cities, and the headmen of those communities, in their individual and collective character, possess great influence, from the fact that they represent the popular feeling. In all parts of the country this popular organization is found in some shape or other, though, as if everything was somehow perverted, it not unfrequently is an instrument of greater oppression than defence. The division of the people into clans is far more marked in the southern provinces than in those lying north of the Yangtsz’, and has had a depressing effect upon their good government. It resembles in general the arrangement of the Scottish clans, as do the evils arising from their dissensions and feuds those which history records as excited among the Highlanders by the rivalry between Campbells and Macgregors.

~VILLAGE ELDERS.~

The eldership of villages has no necessary connection with the clans, for the latter are unacknowledged by the government, but the clan having the majority in a village generally selects the elders from among their number. This system is of very ancient date; its elementary details are given in the _Chau-lí_, one of the oldest works extant in China; Heeren furnishes the same details for India and Raffles for Java, reaching back in their duration to remote antiquity.[260] In the vicinity of Canton the elder is elected by a sort of town meeting, and holds his office during good behavior, receives such a salary as his fellow villagers give him, and may be removed to make way for another whenever the principal persons in the village are displeased with his conduct. His duties are limited to the supervision of the police and general oversight of what is done in the village, and to be a sort of agent or spokesman between the villagers and higher authorities; the duties, the power, and the rank of these officers vary almost indefinitely. The preponderance of one clan prevents much strife in the selection of the elder, but the degree of power reposed in his hand is so small that there is probably little competition to obtain the dignity. A village police is maintained by the inhabitants, under the authority of the elder; the Village of Whampoa, for instance, containing about eight thousand inhabitants, pays the elder $300 salary, and employs fourteen watchmen. His duties further consist in deciding upon the petty questions arising between the villagers and visiting the delinquents with chastisement, enforcing such regulations as are deemed necessary regarding festivals, markets, tanks, streets, collection of taxes, etc. The system of surveillance is, however, kept up by the superior officers, who appoint excise officers, grain agents, tide-waiters, or some other subordinate, as the case may require, to exercise a general oversight of the headmen.

The district magistrate, with the _siunkien_ and their deputies over the hundred, are the officers to whom appeals are carried from the headmen; they also receive the reports of the elders respecting suspicious characters within their limits, or other matters which they deem worthy of reference or remonstrance. A similarity of interests leads the headmen of many villages to meet together at times in a public hall for secret consultation upon important matters, and their united resolutions are generally acted upon by themselves or by the magistrates, as the case may be. This system of eldership, and the influential position the headmen occupy, is an important safeguard the people possess against the extremity of oppressive extortion; while, too, it upholds the government in strengthening the loyalty of those who feel that the only security they possess against theft, and loss of all things from their seditious countrymen, is to uphold the institutions of the land, and that to suffer the evils of a bad magistracy is less dreadful than the horrors of a lawless brigandage.

~SOCIAL EVILS OF CLANSHIP.~

The customs and laws of clanship perpetuate a sad state of society, and render districts and villages, otherwise peaceful, the scenes of unceasing turmoil and trouble. There are only about four hundred clans in the whole of China, but inasmuch as all of the same surname do not live in the same place, the separation of a clan answers the same purpose as multiplying it. Clannish feelings and feuds are very much stronger in Kwangtung and Fuhkien than in other provinces. As an instance which may be mentioned, the _Gazette_ contains the petition of a man from Chauchau fu, in Kwangtung, relating to a quarrel, stating that “four years before, his kindred having refused to assist two other clans in their feuds, had during that period suffered most shocking cruelties. Ten persons had been killed, and twenty men and women, taken captives, had had their eyes dug out, their ears cut off, their feet maimed, and so rendered useless for life. Thirty houses were laid in ruins and three hundred acres of land seized, ten thousand taels plundered, ancestral temples thrown down, graves dug up, dikes destroyed, and water cut off from the fields. The governor had offered a reward of a thousand taels to any one who would apprehend these persons, but for the ten murders no one had been executed, for the police dare not seize the offenders, whose numbers have largely increased, and who set the laws at defiance.” This region is notorious for the turbulence of its inhabitants; it adjoins the province of Fuhkien, and the people, known at Canton as _Hoklo_, emigrate in large numbers to the Indian Archipelago or to other provinces. The later _Gazettes_ contain still more dreadful accounts of the contests of the clans, and the great loss of life and property resulting from their forays, no less than one hundred and twenty villages having been attacked, and thousands of people killed. These battles are constantly occurring, and the authorities, feeling themselves too weak to put them down, are obliged to connive at them and let the clans fight it out.

Ill will is kept up between the clans, and private revenges gratified, by every personal annoyance that malice can suggest or opportunity tempt. If an unfortunate individual of one clan is met alone by his enemy, he is sure to be robbed or beaten, or both; the boats or the houses of each party are plundered or burned, and legal redress is almost impossible. Graves are defaced and tombstones injured, and on the annual visit to the family sepulchre perhaps a putrid corpse is met, placed there by the hostile clan; this insult arouses all their ire, and they vow deadly revenge. The villagers sally out with such arms as they possess, and death and wounds are almost sure to result before they separate. In Shunteh (a district between Canton and Macao) upward of a thousand men engaged with spears and firearms on one of these occasions, and thirty-six lives were lost; the military were called in to quell the riot. In Tungkwan district, southeast of Canton, thirty-six ringleaders were apprehended, and in 1831 it was reported that four hundred persons had been killed in these raids; only twenty-seven of their kindred appealed to government for redress.

When complaint is made to the prefect or governor, and investigation becomes inevitable, the villagers have a provision to meet the exigencies of the case, which puts the burden of the charges as equally as possible upon the whole clan. A band of “devoted men” are found--persons who volunteer to assume such crimes and run their chance for life--whose names are kept on a list, and they come forward and surrender themselves to government as the guilty persons. On the trial their friends employ witnesses to prove it a justifiable homicide, and magnify the provocation, and if there are several brought on the stand at once they try to get some of them clear by proving an alibi. It not unfrequently happens that the accused are acquitted--seldom that they are executed; transportation or a fine is the usual result. The inducement for persons to run this risk of their lives is security from the clan of a maintenance for their families in case of death, and a reward, sometimes as high as $300, in land or money when they return. This sum is raised by taxing the clan or village, and the imposition falls heavily on the poorer portion of it, who can neither avoid nor easily pay it. This system of substitution pervades all parts of society, and for all misdemeanors. A person was strangled in Macao in 1838 for having been engaged in the opium trade, who had been hired by the real criminal to answer to his name. Another mode of escape, sometimes tried in such cases when the person has been condemned, is to bribe the jailers to report him dead and carry out his body in a coffin; but this device probably does not often answer the end, as the turnkeys require a larger bribe than can be raised. There can be little doubt of the prevalence of the practice, and for crimes of even minor penalty.

To increase the social evils of clanship and systematized thieving, local tyrants occasionally spring up, persons who rob and maltreat the villagers by means of their armed retainers, who are in most cases, doubtless, members of the same clan. One of these tyrants, named _Yeh_, or Leaf, became quite notorious in the district of Tungkwan in 1833, setting at defiance all the power of the local authorities, and sending out his men to plunder and ravage whoever resisted his demands, destroying their graves and grain, and particularly molesting those who would not deliver up their wives or daughters to gratify him. He was arrested through craft by the district magistrate at Canton leaving his office and inducing him, for old acquaintance sake, to return with him to the provincial city; he was there tried and executed by the governor, although it was at the time reported that the Board of Punishments endeavored to save his life because he had been in office at the capital. In order that no attempt should be made to rescue him, he was left in ignorance of his sentence until he was put into the sedan to be carried to execution.

~BANDITTI AND TRAMPS.~

Clannish banditti often supply themselves with firearms, and prowling the country to revenge themselves on their enemies, soon proceed to pillage every one; in disarming them the government is sometimes obliged to resort to contemptible subterfuges, which conspicuously show its weakness and encourage a repetition of the evil. Parties of tramps, called _hakka_, or ‘guests,’ roam over Kwangtung province, squatting on vacant places along the shores, away from the villages, and forming small clannish communities; as soon as they increase, occupying more and more of the land, they begin to commit petty depredations upon the crops of the inhabitants, and demand money for the privilege of burying upon the unoccupied ground around them. The government is generally unwilling to drive them off by force, because there is the alternative of making them robbers thereby, and they are invited to settle in other waste lands, which they can have free of taxation, and leave those they have cultivated if strictly private property. This practice shows the populousness of the country in a conspicuous manner. To these evils must be also added the large bodies of floating banditti or dakoits, who rove up and down all the watercourses “like sneaking rats” and pounce upon defenceless boats. Hardly a river or estuary in the land is free from these miscreants, and lives and property are annually destroyed by them to a very great amount, especially on the Yangtsz’, the Pearl River, and other great thoroughfares.

The popular associations in cities and towns are chiefly based upon a community of interests, resulting either from a similarity of occupation, when the leading persons of the same calling form themselves into guilds, or from the municipal regulations requiring the householders living in the same street to unite to maintain a police and keep the peace of their division. Each guild has an assembly-hall, where its members meet to hold the festival of their patron saint, to collect and appropriate the subscriptions of the members and settle the rent or storage on the rooms and goods in the hall, to discuss all public matters as well as the good cheer they get on such occasions, and to confer with other guilds. The members often go to a great expense in emulating each other in their processions, and some rivalry exists regarding their rights, over which the government keeps a watchful eye, for all popular assemblies are its horror. The shopkeepers and householders in the same street are required to have a headman to superintend the police, watchmen, and beggars within his limits. The rulers are sometimes thwarted in their designs by both these forms of popular assemblies, and they no doubt tend in many ways to keep up a degree of independence and of mutual acquaintance, which compels the respect of the government. The governor of Canton in 1838 endeavored to search all the shops in a particular street, to ascertain if there was opium in them; but the shopmen came in a body at the head of the street, and told the policemen that they would on no account permit their shops to be searched. The governor deemed it best to retire. Those who will not join or agree to what the majority orders in these bodies occasionally experience petty tyranny, but in a city this must be comparatively trifling. Several of the leading men in the city are known to hold meetings for consultation in still more popular assemblies for different reasons of a public and pressing nature. There is a building at Canton called the _Ming-lun Tang_, or “Free Discussion Hall,” where political matters are discussed under the knowledge of government, which rather tries to mould than put them down, for the assistance of such bodies, rightly managed, in carrying out their intentions, is considerable, while discontent would be roused if they were forcibly suppressed. In October, 1842, meetings were held in this hall, at one of which a public manifesto was issued, here quoted entire as a specimen of the public appeals of Chinese politicians and orators:

~MANIFESTO ISSUED AGAINST THE ENGLISH.~

“We have been reverently consulting upon the Empire--a vast and undivided whole! How can we permit it to be severed in order to give it to others? Yet we, the rustic people, can learn to practise a rude loyalty; we too know to destroy the banditti, and thus requite his Majesty. Our Great Pure dynasty has cared for this country for more than two hundred years, during which a succession of distinguished monarchs, sage succeeding sage, has reigned; and we who eat the herb of the field, and tread the soil, have for ages drank in the dew of imperial goodness, and been imbued with its benevolence. The people in wilds far remote beyond our influence have also felt this goodness, comparable to the heavens for height, and been upheld by this bounty, like the earth for thickness. Wherefore peace being now settled in the country, ships of all lands come, distant though they be from this for many a myriad of miles; and of all the foreigners on the south and west there is not one but what enjoys the highest peace and contentment, and entertains the profoundest respect and submission.

“But there is that English nation, whose ruler is now a woman and then a man, its people at one time like birds and then like beasts, with dispositions more fierce and furious than the tiger or wolf, and hearts more greedy than the snake or hog--this people has ever stealthily devoured all the southern barbarians, and like the demon of the night they now suddenly exalt themselves. During the reigns of Kienlung and Kiaking these English barbarians humbly besought entrance and permission to make a present; they also presumptuously requested to have Chusan, but those divine personages, clearly perceiving their traitorous designs, gave them a peremptory refusal. From that time, linking themselves in with traitorous traders, they have privily dwelt at Macao, trading largely in opium and poisoning our brave people. They have ruined lives--how many millions none can tell; and wasted property--how many thousands of millions who can guess! They have dared again and again to murder Chinese, and have secreted the murderers, whom they have refused to deliver up, at which the hearts of all men grieved and their heads ached. Thus it has been that for many years past the English, by their privily watching for opportunities in the country, have gradually brought things to the present crisis.

“In 1838, our great Emperor having fully learned all the crimes of the English and the poisonous effects of opium, quickly wished to restore the good condition of the country and compassionate the people. In consequence of the memorial of Hwang Tsioh-sz’, and in accordance to his request, he specially deputed the public-minded, upright, and clear-headed minister, Lin Tseh-sü, to act as his imperial commissioner with plenipotentiary powers, and go to Canton to examine and regulate. He came and took all the stored-up opium and stopped the trade, in order to cleanse the stream and cut off the fountain; kindness was mixed with his severity, and virtue was evident in his laws, yet still the English repented not of their errors, and as the climax of their contumacy called troops to their aid. The censor Hwang, by advising peace, threw down the barriers, and bands of audacious robbers willingly did all kinds of disreputable and villainous deeds. During the past three years these rebels, depending upon their stout ships and effective cannon, from Canton went to Fuhkien, thence to Chehkiang and on to Kiangsu, seizing our territory, destroying our civil and military authorities, ravishing our women, capturing our property, and bringing upon the inhabitants of these four provinces intolerable miseries. His Imperial Majesty was troubled and afflicted, and this added to his grief and anxiety. If you wish to purify their crimes, all the fuel in the Empire will not suffice, nor would the vast ocean be enough to wash out our resentment. Gods and men are alike filled with indignation, and Heaven and Earth cannot permit them to remain.

“Recently, those who have had the management of affairs in Kiangnan have been imitating those who were in Canton, and at the gates of the city they have willingly made an agreement, peeling off the fat of the people to the tune of hundreds of myriads, and all to save the precious lives of one or two useless officers; in doing which they have exactly verified what Chancellor Kin Ying-lin had before memorialized. Now these English rebels are barbarians dwelling in a petty island beyond our domains; yet their coming throws myriads of miles of country into turmoil, while their numbers do not exceed a few myriads. What can be easier than for our celestial dynasty to exert its fulness of power and exterminate these contemptible sea-going imps, just as the blast bends the pliant bamboo? But our highest officers and ministers cherish their precious lives, and civil and military men both dread a dog as they would a tiger; regardless of the enemies of their country or the griefs of the people, they have actually sundered the Empire and granted its wealth; acts more flagitious these than those of the traitors in the days of the Southern Sung dynasty, and the reasons for which are wholly beyond our comprehension. These English barbarians are at bottom without ability, and yet we have all along seen in the memorials that officers exalt and dilate upon their prowess and obstinacy; our people are courageous and enthusiastic, but the officers on the contrary say that they are dispirited and scattered: this is for no other reason than to coerce our prince to make peace, and then they will luckily avoid the penalty due for ‘deceiving the prince and betraying the country.’ Do you doubt? Then look at the memorial of Chancellor Kin Ying-lin, which says: ‘They take the occasion of war to seek for self-aggrandizement;’ every word of which directly points at such conduct as this.

“We have recently read in his Majesty’s lucid mandate that ‘There is no other way, and what is requested must be granted;’ and that ‘We have conferred extraordinary powers upon the ministers, and they have done nothing but deceive us.’ Looking up we perceive his Majesty’s clear discrimination and divine perception, and that he was fully aware of the imbecility of his ministers; he remembers too the loyal anger of his people. He has accordingly now temporarily settled all the present difficulties, but it is that, having matured his plans, he may hereafter manifest his indignation, and show to the Empire that it had not fathomed the divine awe-inspiring counsels.

“The dispositions of these rebellious English are like that of the dog or sheep, whose desires can never be satisfied; and therefore we need not inquire whether the peace now made be real or pretended. Remember that when they last year made disturbance at Canton they seized the Square fort, and thereupon exhibited their audacity, everywhere plundering and ravishing. If it had not been that the patriotic inhabitants dwelling in Hwaitsing and other hamlets, and those in Shingping, had not killed their leader and destroyed their devilish soldiers, they would have scrupled at nothing, taking and pillaging the city, and then firing it in order to gratify their vengeance and greediness: can we imagine that for the paltry sum of six millions of dollars they would, as they did, have raised the siege and retired? How to be regretted! That when the fish was in the frying-pan, the Kwangchau fu should come and pull away the firewood, let loose the tiger to return to the mountains, and disarm the people’s indignation. Letting the enemy thus escape on one occasion has successively brought misery upon many provinces: whenever we speak of it, it wounds the heart and causes the tears to flow.

“Last year, when the treaty of peace was made, it was agreed that the English should withdraw from beyond Lankeet, that they should give back the forts near there and dwell temporarily at Hongkong, and that thenceforth all military operations were forever to cease. Who would have supposed that before the time stipulated had passed away they would have turned their backs upon this agreement, taken violent possession of the forts at the Bogue with their ‘wooden dragons’ [_i.e._, ships of war]--and when they came upon the gates of the City of Rams with their powerful forces, who was there to oppose them? During these three years we have not been able to restore things as at first, and their deceptive craftiness, then confined to these regions, has rapidly extended itself to Kiangnan. But our high and mighty Emperor, pre-eminently intelligent and discerning [_lit._ grasping the golden mirror and holding the gemmeous balances], consents to demean himself to adopt soothing counsels of peace, and therefore submissively accords with the decrees of Heaven. Having a suspicion that these outlandish people intended to encroach upon us, he has secretly arranged all things. We have respectfully read through all his Majesty’s mandates, and they are as clear-sighted as the sun and moon; but those who now manage affairs are like one who, supposing the raging fire to be under, puts himself as much at ease as swallows in a court, but who, if the calamity suddenly reappears, would be as defenceless as a grampus in a fish-market. The law adjudges the penalty of death for betraying the country, but how can even death atone for their crimes? Those persons who have been handed down to succeeding ages with honor, and those whose memories have been execrated, are but little apart on the page of righteous history; let our rulers but remember this, and we think they also must exert themselves to recover their characters. We people have had our day in times of great peace, and this age is one of abundant prosperity; scholars are devising how to recompense the kindness of the government, nor can husbandmen think of forgetting his Majesty’s exertions for them. Our indignation was early excited to join battle with the enemy, and we then all urged one another to the firmest loyalty.

“We have heard the English intend to come into Pearl River and make a settlement; this will not, however, stop at Chinese and foreigners merely dwelling together, for men and beasts cannot endure each other; it will be like opening the door and bowing in the thief, or setting the gate ajar and letting the wolf in. While they were kept outside there were many traitors within; how much more, when they encroach even to our bedsides, will our troubles be augmented? We cannot help fearing it will eventuate in something strange, which words will be insufficient to express. If the rulers of other states wish to imitate the English, with what can their demands be waived? Consequently, the unreasonable demands of the English are going to bring great calamity upon the people and deep sorrow to the country. If we do not permit them to dwell with us under the same heaven, our spirits will feel no shame; but if we willingly consent to live with them, we may in truth be deemed insensate.

“We have reverently read in the imperial mandate, ‘There must indeed be some persons among the people of extraordinary wisdom or bravery, who can stir them up to loyalty and patriotism or unite them in self-defence; some who can assist the government and army to recover the cities, or else defend passes of importance against the robbers; some who can attack and burn their vessels, or seize and bring the heads of their doltish leaders; or else some with divine presence and wisdom, who can disclose all their silly counsels and get to themselves a name of surpassing merit and ability and receive the highest rewards. We can confer,’ etc., etc. We, the people, having received the imperial words, have united ourselves together as troops, and practise the plan of joining hamlets and villages till we have upward of a million of troops, whom we have provisioned according to the scale of estimating the produce of respective farms; and now we are fully ready and quite at ease as to the result. If nothing calls us, then each one will return to his own occupation; but if the summons come, joining our strength in force we will incite each other to effort; our brave sons and brothers are all animated to deeds of arms, and even our wives and daughters, finical and delicate as jewels, have learned to discourse of arms. At first, alas, those who guarded the passes were at ease and careless, and the robbers came unbidden and undesired; but now [if they come], we have only zealously to appoint each other to stations, and suppress the rising of the waves to the stillest calm [_i.e._, to exterminate them]. When the golden pool is fully restored to peace, and his Majesty’s anxiety for the south relieved; when the leviathan has been driven away, then will our anger, comparable to the broad ocean and high heavens, be pacified.

“Ah! We here bind ourselves to vengeance, and express these our sincere intentions in order to exhibit great principles; and also to manifest Heaven’s retribution and rejoice men’s hearts, we now issue this patriotic declaration. The high gods clearly behold: do not lose your first resolution.”[261]

This spirited paper was subsequently answered by the party desirous of peace, but the anti-English feeling prevailed, and the committee appointed by the meeting set the English consulate on fire a few days after, to prevent it being occupied. There were many reasons at the time for this dislike; its further exhibition, however, ended with this attack, and has now pretty much died out with the rising of a new generation.

~POPULAR SECRET ASSOCIATIONS.~

The many secret associations existing among the people are mostly of a political character, but have creeds like religious sects, and differ slightly in their tenets and objects of worship. They are traceable to the system of clans, which giving the people at once the habit and spirit for associations, are easily made use of by clever men for their own purposes of opposition to government. Similar grievances, as local oppression, hatred of the Manchus, or hope of advantage, add to their numbers and strength, and were they founded on a full acquaintance with the grounds of a just resistance to despotism, they would soon overturn the government; but as out of an adder’s egg only a cockatrice can be hatched, so until the people are enlightened with regard to their just rights, no permanent melioration can be expected. It is against that leading feature in the Manchu policy, _isolation_, that these societies sin, which further prompts to systematic efforts to suppress them. The only objection the supreme government seems to have against the religion of the people is that it brings them together; they may be Buddhists, Rationalists, Jews, Mohammedans, or Christians, apparently, if they will worship in secret and apart. On the other hand, the people naturally connect some religious rites with their opposition and cabals in order to more securely bind their members together.

The name of the most powerful of these associations is mentioned in Section CLXII. of the code for the purpose of interdicting it; since then it has apparently changed its designation from the _Pih-lien kiao_, or ‘Water-lily sect,’ to the _Tien-tí hwui_ or _San-hoh hwui_, _i.e._, ‘Triad society,’ though both names still exist, the former in the northern, the latter in the maritime provinces and Indian Archipelago; their ramifications take also other appellations. The object of these combinations is to overturn the reigning dynasty, and in putting this prominently forward they engage many to join them. About the beginning of the century a wide-spread rebellion broke out in the north-western and middle provinces, which was put down after eight years’ war, attended with desolation and bloodshed; since that time the Water-lily sect has not been so often spoken of. The Triad society has extended itself along the coasts, but it is not popular, owing more than anything else to its illegality, and the intimidation and oppression employed toward those who will not join it. The members have secret regulations and signs, and uphold and assist each other both in good and bad acts, but, as might be inferred from their character, screening evil doers from just punishment oftener than relieving distressed members. The original designs of the association may have been good, but what was allowable in them soon degenerated into a systematic plan for plunder and aim at power. The government of Hongkong enacted in 1845 that any Chinese living in that colony who was ascertained to belong to the Triad society should be declared guilty of felony, be imprisoned for three years, and after branding expelled the colony. These associations, if they cause the government much trouble by interfering with its operations, in no little degree, through the overbearing conduct of the leaders, uphold it by showing the people what may be expected if they should ever get the upper hand.[262]

~MEMORIAL UPON OFFICIAL OPPRESSION.~

The evils of mal-administration are to be learned chiefly from the memorials of censors, and although they may color their statements a little, very gross inaccuracies would be used to their own disadvantage, and contradicted by so many competitors, that most of their statements may be regarded as having some foundation. An unknown person in Kwangtung memorialized the Emperor in 1838 concerning the condition of that province, and drew a picture of the extortions of the lower agents of government that needs no illustrations to deepen its darkness or add force to its complaints. An extract from each of the six heads into which the memorial is divided will indicate the principal sources of popular insurrection in China, besides the exhibition they give of the tyranny of the officers.

In his preface, after the usual laudation of the beneficence and popularity of the monarch, the memorialist proceeds to express his regret that the imperial desires for the welfare of his subjects should be so grievously thwarted by the villany of his officers. After mentioning the calamities which had visited the province in the shape of freshets, insurrections, and conflagrations, he says that affairs generally had become so bad as to compel his Majesty to send commissioners to Canton repeatedly in order to regulate them. “If such as this be indeed the state of things,” he inquires, “what wonder is it if habits of plunder characterize the people, or the clerks and under officers of the public courts, as well as village pettifoggers, lay themselves out on all occasions to stir up quarrels and instigate false accusations against the good?” He recommends reform in six departments, under each of which he thus specifies the evils to be remedied:

_First._--In the department of police there is great negligence and delay in the decision of judicial cases. Cases of plunder are very common, most of which are committed by banditti under the designations of Triad societies, Heaven and Earth brotherhoods, etc. These men carry off persons to extort a ransom, falsely assume the character of policemen, and in simulated revenue cutters pass up and down the rivers, plundering the boats of travellers and forcibly carrying off the women. Husbandmen are obliged to pay these robbers an “indemnity,” or else as soon as the crops are ripe they come and carry off the whole harvest. In the precincts of the metropolis, where their contiguity to the tribunals prevents their committing depredations in open day, they set fire to houses during the night, and under the pretence of saving and defending the persons and property carry off both of them; hence, of late years, calamitous fires have increased in frequency, and the bands of robbers multiplied greatly. In cases of altercations among the villagers, who can only use their local patois, it rests entirely with the clerks to interpret the evidence; and when the magistrate is lax or pressed with business, they have the evidence pre-arranged and join with bullies and strife-makers to subvert right and wrong, fattening themselves upon bribes extorted under the names of “memoranda of complaints,” “purchases of replies,” etc., and retarding indefinitely the decision of cases. They also instigate thieves to bring false accusations against the good, who are thereby ruined by legal expenses. While the officers of the government and the people are thus separated, how can it be otherwise than that appeals to the higher tribunals should be increased and litigation and strife prevail?

_Second._--Magistrates overrate the taxes with a view to a deduction for their own benefit, and excise officers connive at non-payment. The revenue of Kwangtung is paid entirely in money, and the magistrates, instead of taking the commutation at a regular price of about five dollars for one hundred and fifty pounds of rice, have compelled the people to pay nine dollars and over, because the inundation and bad harvests had raised the price of grain. In order to avoid this extortion the police go to the villagers and demand a douceur, when they will get them off from all payment. But the imperial coffers are not filled by this means, and the people are by and by forced to pay up their arrearages, even to the loss of most of their possessions.

_Third._--There is great mismanagement of the granaries, and instead of being any assistance to the people in time of scarcity, they are only a source of peculation for those who are charged with their oversight.

_Fourth._--The condition of the army and navy is a disgrace; illicit traffic is not prevented, nor can insurrections be put down. The only care of the officers is to obtain good appointments, and reduce the actual number of soldiers below the register in order that they may appropriate the stores. The cruisers aim only to get fees to allow the prosecution of the contraband traffic, nor will the naval officers bestir themselves to recover the property of plundered boats, but rather become the protectors of the lawless and partakers of their booty. Robberies are so common on the rivers that the traders from the island of Hainan, and Chauchau near Fuhkien, prefer to come by sea, but the revenue cutters overhaul them under pretence of searching for contraband articles, and practise many extortions.

_Fifth._--The monopoly of salt needs to be guarded more strictly, and the private manufacture of salt stopped, for thereby the revenue from this source is materially diminished.

_Sixth._--The increase of smuggling is so great, and the evils flowing from it so multiplied, that strong measures must be taken to repress it. Traitorous Chinese combine with depraved foreigners to set the laws at defiance, and dispose of their opium and other commodities for the pure silver. In this manner the country is impoverished and every evil arises, the revenues of the customs are diminished by the unnecessary number of persons employed and by the fees they receive for connivance. If all these abuses can be remedied, “it will be seen that when there are men to rule well, nothing can be found beyond the reach of their government.”

~FREQUENCY OF ROBBERY AND DAKOITY.~

The chief efforts of officials are directed to put down banditti, and maintain such a degree of peace as will enable them to collect the revenue and secure the people in the quiet possession of their property; but the people are too ready to resist their rulers, and this brings into operation a constant struggle of opposing desires. One side gets into the habit of resisting even the proper requisitions of the officers, who, on their part, endeavor in every way to reimburse their outlay in bribes to their superiors; and the combined action of the two proves an insurmountable impediment to the attainment of even that degree of security a Chinese officer wishes. The general commission of robbery and dakoity, and the prevalence of bands of thieves, therefore proves the weakness of the government, not the insurrectionary disposition of the people. In one district of Hupeh the governor reported in 1828 that “very few of the inhabitants have any regular occupation, and their dispositions are exceedingly ferocious; they fight and kill each other on every provocation. In their villages they harbor thieves who flee from other districts, and sally forth again to plunder.” In the northern parts of Kwangtung the people have erected high and strongly built houses to which they flee for safety from the attacks of robbers. These bands sometimes fall upon each other, and the feudal animosities of clanship adding fuel and rage to the rivalry of partisan warfare, the destruction of life and property is great. Occasionally the people zealously assist their rulers to apprehend them, though their exertions depend altogether upon the energy of the incumbent; an officer in Fuhkien is recommended for promotion because he had apprehended one hundred and seventy-three persons, part of a band of robbers which had infested the department for years, and tried and convicted one thousand one hundred and sixty criminals, most or all of whom were probably executed.

In 1821 there were four hundred robbers taken on the borders of Fuhkien; in 1827 two hundred were seized in the south of the province, and forty-one more brought to Canton from the eastward. The governor offered $1,000 reward for the capture of one leader, and $3,000 for another. The judge of the province put forth a proclamation upon the subject in the same year, in which he says there were four hundred and thirty undecided cases of robbery by brigands then on the calendar; and in 1846 there were upward of two thousand waiting his decision, for each of which there were perhaps five or six persons in prison or under constraint until the case was settled. These bands prowl in the large cities and commit great cruelties. In 1830 a party of five hundred openly plundered a rich man’s house in the western suburbs of Canton; and in Shunteh, south of the city, $600 were paid for the ransom of two persons carried off by them. The ex-governor, in 1831, was attacked by them near the Mei ling pass on his departure from Canton, and plundered of about ten thousand dollars. The magistrates of Hiangshan district, south of Canton, were ordered by their superiors the same year to apprehend five hundred of the robbers. Priests sometimes harbor gangs in their temples and divide the spoils with them, and occasionally go out themselves on predatory excursions. No mercy is shown these miscreants when they are taken, but the multiplication of executions has no effect in deterring them from crime.

~DIFFICULTY IN COLLECTING TAXES.~

Cruelty to individual prisoners does not produce so much disturbance to the general peace of the community as the forcible attempts of officers to collect taxes. The people have the impression that their rulers exact more than is legal, and consequently consider opposition to the demands of the tax-gatherer as somewhat justifiable, which compels, of course, more stringent measures on the part of the authorities, whose station depends not a little on their punctuality in remitting the taxes. Bad harvests, floods, or other public calamities render the people still more disinclined to pay the assessments. In 1845 a serious disturbance arose near Ningpo on this account, which with unimportant differences could probably be paralleled in every prefecture in the land. The people of Funghwa hien having refused to pay an onerous tax, the prefect of Ningpo seized three literary men of the place, who had been deputed to collect it, and put them in prison; this procedure so irritated the gentry that the candidates at the literary examination which occurred at Funghwa soon afterward, on being assembled at the public hall before the _chíhien_, rose upon him and beat him severely. They were still further incensed against him from having recently detected him in deceitful conduct regarding a petition they had made at court to have their taxes lightened; he had kept the answer and pocketed the difference. He was consequently superseded by another magistrate, and a deputy of the intendant of circuit was sent with the new incumbent to restore order. But the deputy, full of his importance, carried himself so haughtily that the excited populace treated him in the same manner, and he barely escaped with his life to Ningpo. The intendant and prefect, finding matters rising to such a pitch, sent a detachment of twelve hundred troops to keep the peace, but part of these were decoyed within the walls and attacked with such vigor that many of them were made prisoners, a colonel and a dozen privates killed, and two or three hundred wounded or beaten, and all deprived of their arms. In this plight they returned to Ningpo, and, as the distance is not great, apprehensions were entertained lest the insurgents should follow up their advantage by organizing themselves and marching upon the city to seize the prefect. The officers sent immediately to Hangchau for assistance, from whence the governor sent a strong force of ten thousand men to restore order, and soon after arrived himself. He demanded three persons to be given up who had been active in fomenting the resistance, threatening in case of non-compliance that he would destroy the town; the prefect and his deputy from the intendant’s office were suspended and removed to another post. These measures restored quiet to a considerable extent.[263]

The existence of such evils in Chinese society would rapidly disorganize it were it not for the conservative influence upon society of early education and training in industry. The government takes care to avail itself of this better element in public opinion, and grounds thereon a basis of action for the establishment of good order. But this, and ten thousand similar instances, only exhibit more strongly how great a work there is to be done before high and low, people and rulers, will understand their respective duties and rights; before they will, on the one hand, pay that regard to the authority of their rulers which is necessary for the maintenance of good order, and, on the other, resist official tyranny in preserving their own liberties.

If the character of the officers, therefore, be such as has been briefly shown--open to bribery, colluding with criminals, sycophantic toward superiors, and cruel to the people; and the constituents of society present so many repulsive features--opposing clans engaged in deadly feuds, bandits scouring the country to rob, policemen joining to oppress, truth universally disregarded, selfishness the main principle of action, and almost every disorganizing element but imperfectly restrained from violent outbreaks and convulsions, it will not be expected that the regular proceedings of the courts and the execution of the laws will prove on examination to be any better than the materials of which they are composed. As civil and criminal cases are all judged by one officer, one court tries nearly all the questions which arise. A single exception is provided for in the code, wherein it is ordered that “in cases of adultery, robbery, fraud, assaults, breach of laws concerning marriage, landed property or pecuniary contracts, or any other like offences committed by or against individuals in the military class--if any of the people are implicated or concerned, the military commanding officer and the civil magistrate shall have a concurrent jurisdiction.”[264]

~CHARACTER OF JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS.~

At the bottom of the judicial scale are the village elders. This incipient element of the democratic principle has also existed in India in much the same form; but while its power ended in the local eldership there, in China it is only the lowest step of the scale. The elders give character to the village, and are expected to manage its public affairs, settle disputes among its inhabitants, arrange matters with other villages, and answer to the magistrates on its behalf. The code provides that all persons having complaints and informations address themselves in the first instance to the lowest tribunal of justice in the district, from which the cognizance of the affair may be transferred to the superior tribunals. The statement of the case is made in writing, and the officer is required to act upon it immediately; if the parties are dissatisfied with the award, the judgment of the lower courts is carried up to the superior ones. No case can be carried directly to the Emperor; it must go through the Board of Punishments; old men and women, however, sometimes present petitions to him on his journeys, but such appeals seldom occur, owing to the difficulty of access. The captains in charge of the gates of Peking, in 1831, presented a memorial upon the subject, in which they attribute the number of appeals to the obstinacy of many persons in pressing their cases and the remissness of local officers, so that even women and girls of ten years of age take long journeys to Peking to state their cases. The memorialists recommend that an order be issued requiring the two high provincial officers to adjudicate all cases, either themselves or by a court of errors, and not send the complainants back to the district magistrates. These official porters must have been much troubled with young ladies coming to see his Majesty, or perhaps were advised to present such a paper to afford a text for the Emperor to preach from; to confer such power upon the governor and his associates would almost make them the irresponsible sovereigns of the provinces. Appeals frequently arise out of delay in obtaining justice, owing to the amount of business in the courts; for the calendar may be expected to increase when the magistrate leaves his post to curry favor with his superiors. The almost utter impossibility of learning the truth of the case brought before them, either from the principal parties or the witnesses, must be borne in mind when deciding upon the oppressive proceedings of the magistrates to elicit the truth. Mention is made of one officer promoted for deciding three hundred cases in a year; again of a district magistrate who tried upward of a thousand within the same period; while a third revised and decided more than six hundred in which the parties had appealed. What becomes of the appeals in such cases, or whose decision stands, does not appear; but if such proceedings are common, it accounts for the constant practice of sending appeals back to be revised, probably after a change in the incumbent.

Few or no civil cases are reported in the _Gazette_ as being carried up to higher courts, and probably only a small proportion of them are brought before the authorities, the rest being settled by reference. Appeals to court receive attention, and it may be inferred, too, that many of them are mentioned in the _Gazette_ in order that the carefulness of the supreme government in revising the unjust decrees against the people should be known through the country, and this additional check to malversation on the part of the lower courts be of some use. Many cases are reported of widows and daughters, sons and nephews, of murdered persons, to whom the revenge of kindred rightly belongs, appealing against the unjust decrees of the local magistrates, and then sent back to the place they came from; this, of course, was tantamount to a _nolle prosequi_. At other times the wicked judges have been degraded and banished. One case is reported of a man who found his way to the capital from Fuhkien to complain against the magistracy and police, who protected a clan by whom his only son had been shot, in consideration of a bribe of $2,000. His case could not be understood at Peking in consequence of his local pronunciation, which indicates that all cases are not reported in writing. One appeal is reported against the governor of a province for not carrying into execution the sentence of death passed on two convicted murderers; and another appellant requests that two persons, who were bribed to undergo the sentence of the law instead of the real murderers, might not be substituted--he, perhaps, fearing their subsequent vengeance.

~STYLE OF OFFICIAL ESTABLISHMENTS.~

All officers of government are supposed to be accessible at any time, and the door of justice to be open to all who claim a hearing; and in fact, courts are held at all hours of night and day, though the regular time is from sunrise to noonday. The style of address varies according to the rank; _tajin_, or magnate, for the highest, _ta laoyé_, or great Sir, and _laoyé_, Sir, for the lower grade, are the most common. A drum is said to be placed at the inferior tribunals, as well as before the Court of Representation in Peking, which the plaintiff strikes in order to make his presence known, though from the number of hangers-on about the doors of official residences, the necessity of employing this mode of attracting notice is rare. At the gate of the governor-general’s palace are placed six tablets, having appropriate inscriptions for those who have been wronged by wicked officers; for those who have suffered from thieves; for persons falsely accused; for those who have been swindled; for such as have been grieved by other parties; and lastly, for those who have secret information to impart. The people, however, are aware how useless it would be to inscribe their appeals upon these tablets; they write them out and carry them up to his excellency, or to the proper official--seldom forgetting the indispensable present.

Magistrates are not allowed to go abroad in ordinary dress and without their official retinue, which varies for the different grades of rank. The usual attendants of the district magistrates are lictors with whips and chains--significant of the punishments they inflict; they are preceded by two gong-bearers, who every few moments strike a certain number of raps to intimate their master’s rank, and by two avant-couriers, who howl out an order for all to make room for the great man. A servant bearing aloft a _lo_, or state umbrella (of which a drawing is given on the title-page), also goes before him, further to increase his display and indicate his rank.[265] A subaltern usually runs by the side of his sedan, and his secretary and messengers, seated in more ordinary chairs or following on foot, make up the cortége. The highest officers are carried by eight bearers, others by four, and the lowest by two. Lanterns are used at night and red tablets in the daytime, to indicate his rank. Officers of higher ranks are attended by a few soldiers in addition, and in the capital are required to have mounted attendants if they ride in carts; those who bear the sedan are usually in a uniform of their master’s devising. The parade and noise seen in the provinces are all hushed in Peking, where the presence of majesty subdues the glory of the officers which it has created. When in court the officer sits behind a desk upon which are placed writing materials; his secretaries, clerks, and interpreters being in waiting, and the lictors with their instruments of punishment and torture standing around. Persons who are brought before him kneel in front of the tribunal. His official seal, and cups containing tallies which are thrown down to indicate the number of blows to be given the culprits, stand upon the table, and behind his seat a _kí-lin_, or unicorn, is depicted on the wall. There are inscriptions hanging around the room, one of which exhorts him to be merciful. There is little pomp or show, either in the office or attendants, compared with our notions of what is usual in such matters among Asiatics. The former is a dirty, unswept, tawdry room, and the latter are beggarly and impertinent.

~MODE OF PROCEDURE IN LAW COURTS.~

No counsel is allowed to plead, but the written accusations, pleas, or statements required must be prepared by licensed notaries, who may also read them in court, and who, no doubt, take opportunity to explain circumstances in favor of their client. These notaries buy their situations, and repay themselves by a fee upon the documents; they are the only persons who are analogous to the lawyers in western countries, and most of them have the reputation of extorting largely for their services. Of course there is no such thing as a jury, or a chief justice stating the case to associate judges to learn their opinion; nor is anything like an oath required of the witnesses.

The presiding officer can call in others to assist him in the trial to any extent he pleases. In one Canton court circular it is stated that no less than sixteen officers assisted the governor-general and governor in the trial of one criminal. The report of the trial is as summary as the recital of the bench of judges is minute: “H. E. Gov. Tăng arrived to join the futai in examining a criminal; and at 8 A.M., under a salute of guns, the doors of the great hall of audience were thrown open, and their excellencies took their seats, supported by all the other functionaries assembled for the occasion. The police officers of the judge were then directed to bring forward the prisoner, Yeh A-shun, a native of Tsingyuen hien; he was forthwith brought in, tried, and led out. The futai then requested the imperial death-warrant, and sent a deputation of officers to conduct the criminal to the market-place and there decapitate him. Soon after the officers returned, restored the death-warrant to its place, and reported that they had executed the criminal.” The prisoner, or his friends for him, are allowed to appear in every step of the inquiry prior to laying the case before the Emperor, and punishment is threatened to all the magistrates through whose hands it passes if they neglect the appeal; but this extract shows the usage of the courts.

The general policy of officers is to quash cases and repress appeals, and probably they do so to a great degree by bringing extorted confessions of the accused party and the witnesses in proof of the verdict. Governor Lí of Canton issued a prohibition in 1834 against the practice of old men and women presenting petitions--complaining of the nuisance of having his chair stopped in order that a petition might be forced into it, and threatening to seize and punish the presumptuous intruders if they persisted in this custom. He instructs the district magistrates to examine such persons, to ascertain who pushed them forward, and to punish the instigators, observing, “if the people are impressed with a due dread of punishment, they will return to respectful habits.” It seems to be the constant effort on the part of the officers to evade the importunities of the injured and shove by justice, and were it not owing to the perseverance of the people, a system of irremediable oppression would soon be induced. But the poor have little chance of being heard against the rich, and if they do appeal they are in most cases remanded to the second judgment of the very officer against whom they complain; and of course as this is equivalent to a refusal from the high grades to right them at all, commotions gradually grow out of it, which are managed according to the exigencies of the case by those who are likely to be involved in their responsibility. The want of an irresistible police to compel obedience has a restraining effect on the rulers, who know that Lynch law may perhaps be retaliated upon them if they exasperate the people too far. A prefect was killed in Chauchau fu some years ago for his cruelty, and the people excused their act by saying that it was done because the officer had failed to carry out the Emperor’s good rule, and they would not endure it longer. Amid such enormities it is no wonder if the peaceably disposed part of the community prefer to submit in silence to petty extortions and robberies, rather than risk the loss of all by unavailing complaints.

The code contains many sections regulating the proceedings of courts, and provides heavy punishments for such officers as are guilty of illegalities or cruelty in their decisions, but the recorded cases prove that most of these laws are dead letters. Section CCCCXVI. ordains that “after a prisoner has been tried and convicted of any offence punishable with temporary or perpetual banishment or death, he shall, in the last place, be brought before the magistrate, together with his nearest relations and family, and informed of the offence whereof he stands convicted, and of the sentence intended to be pronounced upon him in consequence; their acknowledgment of its justice or protest against its injustice, as the case may be, shall then be taken down in writing: and in every case of their refusing to admit the justice of the sentence, their protest shall be made the ground of another and more particular investigation.” All capital cases must be reviewed by the highest authorities at the metropolis and in the provinces, and a final report of the case and decision submitted to the Emperor’s notice. Section CCCCXV. requires that the law be quoted when deciding. The numerous wise and merciful provisions in the code for the due administration of justice only place the conduct of its authorized executives in a less excusable light, and prove how impossible it is to procure an equitable magistracy by mere legal requirements and penalties.

~MODES AND EXTENT OF TORTURING CULPRITS.~

The confusion of the civil and criminal laws in the code, and the union of both functions in the same person, together with the torture and imprisonment employed to elicit a confession, serve as an indication of the state of legislation and jurisprudence. The common sense of a truthful people would revolt against the infliction of torture to get out the true deposition of a witness, and their sense of honor would resist the disgraceful exposure of the cangue for not paying debts. As the want of truth among a people indicates a want of honor, the necessity of more stringent modes of procedure suggests the practice of torture; its application is allowed and restricted by several sections of the code, but in China, as elsewhere, it has always been abused. Torture is practised upon both criminals and witnesses, in court and in prison; and the universal dread among the people of coming before courts, and having anything to do with their magistrates, is owing in great measure to the illegal sufferings they too often must endure. It has also a powerful deterrent effect in preventing crime and disorder. Neither imprisonment nor torture are ranked among the five punishments, but they cause more deaths, probably, among arrested persons than all other means.

Among the modes of torture employed in court, and reported in the _Gazette_, are some revolting to humanity, but which of them are legal does not appear. The clauses under Section I. in the code describe the legal instruments of torture; they consist of three boards with proper grooves for compressing the ankles, and five round sticks for squeezing the fingers, to which may be added the bamboo; besides these no instruments of torture are legally allowed, though other ways of putting the question are so common as to give the impression that some of them at least are sanctioned. Pulling or twisting the ears with roughened fingers, and keeping them in a bent position while making the prisoner kneel on chains, or making him kneel for a long time, are among the illegal modes. Striking the lips with sticks until they are nearly jellied, putting the hands in stocks before or behind the back, wrapping the fingers in oiled cloth to burn them, suspending the body by the thumbs and fingers, tying the hands to a bar under the knees, so as to bend the body double, and chaining by the neck close to a stone, are resorted to when the prisoner is contumacious. One magistrate is accused of having fastened up two criminals to boards by nails driven through their palms; one of them tore his hands loose and was nailed up again, which caused his death; using beds of iron, boiling water, red hot spikes, and cutting the tendon Achilles are also charged against him, but the Emperor exonerated him on account of the atrocious character of the criminals. Compelling them to kneel upon pounded glass, sand, and salt mixed together, until the knees become excoriated, or simply kneeling upon chains is a lighter mode of the same infliction. Mr. Milne mentions seeing a wretch undergoing this torture, his hands tied behind his back to a stake held in its position by two policemen; if he swerved to relieve the agony of his position, a blow on his head compelled him to resume it. The agonies of the poor creature were evident from his quivering lips, his pallid and senseless countenance, and his tremulous voice imploring relief, which was refused with a cold, mocking command, “Suffer or confess.”[266]

Flogging is one of the five authorized punishments, but it is used more than any other means to elicit confession; the bamboo, rattan, cudgel, and whip are all employed. When death ensues the magistrate reports that the criminal died of sickness, or hushes it up by bribing his friends, few of whom are ever allowed access within the walls of the prison to see and comfort the sufferers. From the manner in which such a result is spoken of it may be inferred that immediate death does not often take place from torture. A magistrate in Sz’chuen being abused by a man in court, who also struck the attendants, ordered him to be put into a coffin which happened to be near, when suffocation ensued; he was in consequence dismissed the service, punished one hundred blows, and transported three years. One check on outrageous torture is the fear that the report of their cruelty will come to the ears of their superiors, who are usually ready to avail of any mal-administration to get an officer removed, in order to fill the post. In this case, as in other parts of Chinese government, the dread of one evil prevents the commission of another.

~THE FIVE LEGAL PUNISHMENTS.~

The five kinds of punishment mentioned in the code are from ten to fifty blows with the lesser bamboo, from fifty to one hundred with the greater, transportation, perpetual banishment, and death, each of them modified in various ways. The small bamboo weighs about two pounds, the larger two and two-thirds pounds. Public exposure in the _kia_, or cangue, is considered rather as a kind of censure or reprimand than a punishment, and carries no disgrace with it, nor comparatively much bodily suffering if the person be fed and screened from the sun. The frame weighs between twenty and thirty pounds, and is so made as to rest upon the shoulders without chafing the neck, but so broad as to prevent the person feeding himself. The name, residence, and offence of the delinquent are written upon it for the information of every passer-by, and a policeman is stationed over him to prevent escape. Branding is applied to deserters and banished persons. Imprisonment and fines are not regarded as legal punishments, but rather correctives; and flogging, as Le Comte says, “is never wanting, there being no condemnation in China without this previous disposition, so that it is unnecessary to mention it in their condemnation; this being always understood to be their first dish.” When a man is arrested he is effectually prevented from breaking loose by putting a chain around his neck and tying his hands.

Most punishments are redeemable by the payment of money if the criminal is under fifteen or over seventy years of age, and a table is given in the code for the guidance of the magistrate in such cases. An act of grace enables a criminal condemned even to capital punishment to redeem himself, if the offence be not one of wilful malignity; but better legislation would have shown the good effects of not making the punishments so severe. It is also ordered in Section XVIII., that “any offender under sentence of death for a crime not excluded from the contingent benefit of an act of grace, who shall have infirm parents or grandparents alive over seventy years of age, and no other male child over sixteen to support them, shall be recommended to the mercy of his Majesty; and if only condemned to banishment, shall receive one hundred blows and redeem himself by a fine.” Many atrocious laws may be forgiven for one such exhibition of regard for the care of decrepid parents. Few governments exhibit such opposing principles of actions as the Chinese: a strange blending of cruelty to prisoners with a maudlin consideration of their condition, and a constant effort to coax the people to obedience while exercising great severity upon individuals, are everywhere manifest. One who has lived in the country long, however, knows well that they are not to be held in check by rope-yarn laws or whimpering justices, and unless the rulers are a terror to evil-doers, the latter will soon get the upper hand. Dr. Field well considers this point in his interesting notes describing his visit to a _yamun_ at Canton.[267] The general prosperity of the Empire proves in some measure the equity of its administration.

~CORRECTION OF MINOR OFFENCES.~

Banishment and slavery are punishments for minor official delinquencies, and few officers who live long in the Emperor’s employ do not take an involuntary journey to Mongolia, Turkestan, or elsewhere, in the course of their lives. The fates and conduct of banished criminals are widely unlike; some doggedly serve out their time, others try to ingratiate themselves with their masters in order to alleviate or shorten the time of service, while hundreds contrive to escape and return to their homes, though this subjects them to increased punishment. Persons banished for treason are severely dealt with if they return without leave, and those convicted of crime in their place of banishment are increasingly punished; one man was sentenced to be outlawed for an offence at his place of banishment, but seeing that his aged mother had no other support than his labor, the Emperor ordered that a small sum should be paid for her living out of the public treasury. Whipping a man through the streets as a public example to others is frequently practised upon persons detected in robbery, assault, or some other minor offences. The man is manacled, and one policeman goes before him carrying a tablet, on which are written his name, crime, and punishment, accompanied by another holding a gong. In some cases little sticks bearing flags are thrust through his ears, and the lictor appointed to oversee the fulfilment of the sentence follows the executioner, who strikes the criminal with his whip or rattan as the rap on the gong denotes that the appointed number is not yet complete.

~MANNER OF PUBLIC EXECUTIONS.~

Decapitation and strangling are the legal modes of executing criminals, though Kí Kung having taken several incendiaries at Canton, in 1843, who were convicted of firing the city for purposes of plunder, starved them to death in the public squares of the city. The least disgraceful mode of execution is strangulation, which is performed by tying a man to a post and tightening the cord which goes round his neck by a winch; the infliction is very speedy, and apparently less painful than hanging. The least crime for which death is awarded appears to be a third and aggravated theft, and defacing the branding inflicted for former offences. Decollation is considered more disgraceful than strangling, owing to the dislike the Chinese have of dissevering the bodies which their parents gave them entire. There are two modes of decapitation, that of simple decollation being considered, again, as less disgraceful than being “cut into ten thousand pieces,” as the phrase _ling chih_ has been rendered. The military officer who superintends the execution is attended by a guard, to keep the populace from crowding upon the limits and prevent resistance on the part of the prisoners. The bodies are given up to the friends, except when the head is exposed as a warning in a cage where the crime was committed. If no one is present to claim the corpse it is buried in the public pit. The criminals are generally so far exhausted that they make no resistance, and submit to their fate without a groan--much more, without a dying speech to the spectators. In ordinary cases the executions are postponed until the autumnal assize, when the Emperor revises and confirms the sentences of the provincial governors; criminals guilty of extraordinary offences, as robbery attended with murder, arson, rape, breaking into fortifications, highway robbery, and piracy, may be immediately beheaded without reference to court, and as the expense of maintenance and want of prison room are both to be considered, it is the fact that criminals condemned for one or other of these crimes comprise the greater part of the unreferred executions in the provinces.

It is impossible to ascertain the number of persons executed in China, for the life of a condemned criminal is thought little of; in the court circular it is merely reported that “the execution of the criminals was completed,” without mentioning their crimes, residences, or names. At the autumnal revises at Peking the number sentenced is given in the _Gazette_; 935 were sentenced in 1817, of which 133 were from the province of Kwangtung; in 1826 there were 581; in 1828 the number was 789, and in the next year 579 names were marked off, none of whose crimes, it is inferrible, are included in the list of offences mentioned above. The condemnations are sent from the capital by express, and the executions take place immediately. Most of the persons condemned in a province are executed in its capital, and to hear of the death of a score or more of felons on a single day is no uncommon thing. The trials are more speedy than comports with our notions of justice, and the executions are performed in the most summary manner. It is reported on one occasion that the governor-general of Canton ascended his judgment-seat, examined three prisoners brought before him, and having found them guilty, condemned them, asked himself for the death-warrant (for he temporarily filled the office of governor), and, having received it, had the three men carried away in about two hours after they were first brought before him. A few days after he granted the warrant to execute a hundred bandits in prison. During the terrible rebellion in Kwangtung, in 1854-55, the prisoners taken by the Imperialists were usually transported to Canton for execution. In a space of fourteen months, up to January, 1856, about eighty-three thousand malefactors suffered death in that city alone, besides those who died in confinement; these men were arrested and delivered to execution by their countrymen, who had suffered untold miseries through their sedition and rapine.

When taken to execution the prisoners are clothed in clean clothes.[268] A military officer is present, and the criminals are brought on the ground in hod-like baskets hanging from a pole borne of two, or in cages, and are obliged to kneel toward the Emperor’s residence, or toward the death-warrant, which indicates his presence, as if thanking their sovereign for his care. The list is read aloud and compared with the tickets on the prisoners; as they kneel, a lictor seizes their pinioned hands and jerks them upward so that the head is pushed down horizontally, and a single down stroke with the heavy hanger severs it from the neck. In the slow and ignominious execution, or _ling chih_, the criminal is tied to a cross and hacked to pieces; the executioner is nevertheless often hired to give the coup-de-grace at the first blow. It is not uncommon for him to cut out the gall-bladder of notorious robbers and sell it, to be eaten as a specific for courage. There is an official executioner besides the real one, the latter being sometimes a criminal taken out of the prisons.

~ATROCIOUS MANAGEMENT OF PRISONS.~

Probably the number of persons who suffer by the sword of the executioner is not one-half of those who die from the effects of torture and privations in prisons. Not much is known of the internal arrangement of the _hells_, as prisons are called; they seem to be managed with a degree of kindness and attention to the comfort of the prisoners, so far as the intentions of government are concerned, but the cruelties of the turnkeys and older prisoners to exact money from the new comers are terrible. In Canton there are jails in the city under the control of four different officers, the largest covering about an acre, and capable of holding upward of five hundred prisoners. Since it is the practice of distant magistrates to send their worst prisoners up to the capital, these jails are not large enough, and jail distempers arise from over-crowding; two hundred deaths were reported in 1826 from this and other causes, and one hundred and seventeen cases in 1831. Private jails were hired to accommodate the number, and one governor reports having found twenty-two such places in Canton where every kind of cruelty was practised. The witnesses and accusers concerned in appellate causes had, he says, also been brought up to the city and imprisoned along with the guilty party, where they were kept months without any just reason. In one case, where a defendant and plaintiff were imprisoned together, the accuser fell upon the other and murdered him. Sometimes the officer is unable from press of business to attend to a case, and confines all the principals and witnesses concerned until he can examine them, but the government takes no means to provide for them during the interval, and many of the poorer ones die. No security or bail is obtainable on the word of a witness or his friends, so that if unable to fee the jailers he is in nearly as bad a case as the criminal. Extending bail to an accused criminal is nearly unknown, but female prisoners are put in charge of their husbands or parents, who are held responsible for their appearance. The constant succession of criminals in the provincial head prison renders the posts of jailers and turnkeys very lucrative. The letters of the Roman Catholic missionaries from China during the last century, found in the _Lettres Édifiantes_ and _Annales de la Foi_, contain many sad pictures of the miseries of prison life there.

The prisons are arranged somewhat on the plan of a large stable, having an open central court occupying nearly one-fourth of the area, and small cribs or stalls covered by a roof extending nearly around it, so contrived that each company of prisoners shall be separated from its neighbors on either side night and day, though more by night than by day. The prisoners cook for themselves in the court, and are secured by manacles and gyves, and a chain joining the hands to the neck; one hand is liberated in the daytime in order to allow them to take care of themselves. Heinous criminals are more heavily ironed, and those in the prisons attached to the judge’s office are worse treated than the others. Each criminal should receive a daily ration of two pounds of rice, and about two cents with which to buy fuel, but the jailer starves them on half this allowance if they are unable to fee him; clothing is also scantily provided, but those who have money can procure almost every convenience. Each crib full of criminals is under the control of a turnkey, who with a few old offenders spends much time torturing newly arrived persons to force money from them, by which many lose their lives, and all suffer far more in this manner than they do from the officers of government. Well may the people call their prisons hells, and say, when a man falls into the clutches of the jailers or police, “the flesh is under the cleaver.”

There are many processes for the recovery of debts and fulfilment of contracts, some legal and others customary, the latter depending upon many circumstances irrelevant to the merits of the case. The law allows that debtors be punished by bambooing according to the amount of the debt. A creditor often resorts to illegal means to recover his claim, which give rise to many excesses; sometimes he quarters himself upon the debtor’s family or premises, at others seizes him or some of his family and keeps them prisoners, and, in extreme cases, sells them. Unscrupulous debtors are equally skilful and violent in eluding, cheating, and resisting their incensed creditors, according as they have the power. They are liable, when three months have expired after the stipulated time of payment, to be bambooed, and their property attached. In most cases, however, disputes of this sort are settled without recourse to government, and if the debtor is really without property, he is not imprisoned till he can procure it. The effects of absconding debtors are seized and divided by those who can get them. Long experience, moreover, of each other’s characters has taught them, in contracting debts, to have some security at the outset, and therefore in settling up there is not so much loss as might be supposed considering the difficulty of collecting debts. Accusations for libel, slander, breach of marriage contract, and other civil or less criminal offences are not all brought before the authorities, but are settled by force or arbitration among the people themselves and their elders.

The nominal salaries of Chinese officers have already been stated (p. 294). It is a common opinion among the people that on an average they receive about ten times their salaries; in some cases they pay thirty, forty and more thousand dollars beforehand for the situation. One encouragement to the harassing vexations of the official secretaries and police is the dislike of the people to carry their cases before officers who they know are almost compelled to fleece and peel them; they think it cheaper and safer to bear a small exaction from an underling than run the risk of a greater from his master.

If the preventives against popular violence which the supreme government has placed around itself could be strengthened by an efficient military force, its power would be well secured indeed; but then, as in Russia, it would probably become, by degrees, an intolerable tyranny. The troops are, in fact, everywhere present, ostensibly to support the laws, protect the innocent, and punish the guilty; such of them as are employed by the authorities as guards and policemen are, on the whole, efficient and courteous, though miserably paid, while the regiments in garrison are contemptible to both friend and foe.

The efficacy of the system of checks upon the high courts and provincial officers is increased by their intrigues and conflicting ambition, and long experience has shown that the Emperor’s power has little to fear from proconsular rebellion. The inefficiency of the army is a serious evil to the people in one respect, for more power in that arm would repress banditti and pirates; while the sober part of the community would coöperate in a hearty effort to quell them. The greatest difficulty the Emperor finds in upholding his authority lies in the general want of integrity in the officers he employs; good laws may be made, but he has few upright agents to execute them. This has been abundantly manifested in the laws against opium and gambling; no one could be found to carry them into execution, though everybody assented to their propriety.

~LATENT INFLUENCE OF PUBLIC OPINION.~

The chief security on the side of the people against an unmitigated oppression such as now exists in Turkey, besides those already pointed out, lies as much as anywhere in their general intelligence of the true principles on which the government is founded and should be executed. With public opinion on its side the government is a strong one, but none is less able to execute its designs when it runs counter to that opinion, although those designs may be excellent and well intended. Elements of discord are found in the social system which would soon effect its ruin were they not counteracted by other influences, and the body politic goes on like a heavy, shackly, lumbering van, which every moment threatens a crashing, crumbling fall, yet goes on still tottering, owing to the original goodness of its construction. From the enormous population of this ancient van, it is evident that any attempt to remodel it must seriously affect one or the other of its parts, and that when once upset it may be impossible to reconstruct it in its original form. There is encouragement to hope that the general intelligence and shrewdness of the government and people of China, their language, institutions, industry, and love of peace, will all act as powerful conservative influences in working out the changes which cannot now be long delayed; and that she will maintain her unity and industry while going through a thorough reform of her political, social, and religious systems.

It is very difficult to convey to the reader a fair view of the administration of the laws in China. Notwithstanding the cruelty of officers to the criminals before them, they are not all to be considered as tyrants; because insurrections arise, attended with great loss of life, it must not be supposed that society is everywhere disorganized; the Chinese are so prone to falsify that it is difficult to ascertain the truth, yet it must not be inferred that every sentence is a lie; selfishness is a prime motive for their actions, yet charity, kindness, filial affection, and the unbought courtesies of life still exist among them. Although there is an appalling amount of evil and crime in every shape, it is mixed with some redeeming traits; and in China, as elsewhere, good and bad are intermingled. Some of the evils in the social system arise from the operation of the principles of mutual responsibility, while this very feature produces sundry good effects in restraining people who have no higher motive than the fear of injuring the innocent. We hear so much of the shocking cruelties of courts and prisons that the vast number of cases before the bench are all supposed to exhibit the same fatiguing reiteration of suffering, injustice, bribery, and cruelty. One must live in the country to see how the antagonistic principles found in Chinese society act and react upon each other, and are affected by the wicked passions of the heart. Officers and people are bad almost beyond belief to one conversant only with the courtesy, justice, purity, and sincerity of Christian governments and society; and yet we think they are not as bad as the old Greeks and Romans, and have no more injustice or torture in their courts, nor impurity or mendacity in their lives. As in our own land we are apt to forget that the recitals of crimes and outrages which the daily papers bring before our eyes furnish no index of the general condition of society, so in China, where that condition is immeasurably worse, we must be mindful that this is likewise true.

FOOTNOTES:

[240] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. VI., p. 48.

[241] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. IV., p. 59.

[242] _Embassy to China_, Vol. III., p. 26.

[243] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. III., p. 241.

[244] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. IV., pp. 61-66.

[245] Compare Dr. Bowring in _N. C. Br. R. A. Soc. Journal_, Part III., Art. VII. (Dec., 1852).

[246] _Chinese Repository_, passim. Oliphant, _Lord Elgin’s Mission to China and Japan_, Chap. XVII. Minister Reed, in _U. S. Dip. Correspondence_, 1857-58.

[247] The Chinese have a great affection for the place of their nativity, and consider a residence in any other province like being in a foreign settlement. They always wish to return thither in life, or have their remains carried and interred there after death.

[248] A district in the province of Kwangsí.

[249] Kiuh Kiang was an ancient minister of state during the Tang dynasty. His imperial master would not listen to his advice and he therefore retired. Rebellion and calamities arose. The Emperor thought of his faithful servant and sent for him; but he was already dead.

[250] Governor Loo.

[251] In permitting Chu to retire from public life.

[252] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. IV., p. 71.

[253] _Annales de la Foi_, No. 6, 1823, pp. 21-24.

[254] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. I., p. 236.

[255] _Easy Lessons in Chinese_, pp. 223-227. The effect of these instructions relating to grasshoppers does not appear to have equalled the zeal of the officers composing them; swarms of locusts, however, are in general neither numerous nor devastating in China.

[256] _A new History of China, containing a description of the most considerable particulars of that Empire, written by_ Gabriel Magaillans, _of the Society of Jesus, Missionary Apostolick. Done out of French._ London, 1688, p. 249.

[257] Compare the _Chinese Repository_, Vol. XVIII., p. 207.

[258] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. IV., p. 218.

[259] Compare Doolittle, _Social Life of the Chinese_, Vol. I., p. 330.

[260] Heeren, _Asiatic Nations_, Vol. II., p. 259. Raffles, _Java_, Vol. II. App. Biot, _L’Instruction publique_, pp. 59, 200.

[261] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. XI., p. 630.

[262] Compare Dr. Milne, in _Transactions R. A. S. of Gr. Brit. and Irel._, Vol. I., p. 240 (1825). _Journal of the R. A. S._, Vol. I., p. 93, and Vol. VI., p. 120. _Chinese Repository_, Vol. XVIII., pp. 280-295. A. Wylie, in the _Shanghai Almanac for 1854_. _Notes and Queries on C. and J._, Vol. III., p. 55. T. T. Meadows, _The Chinese and their Rebellions_, London, 1856. Gustave Schlegel, _Thian Ti Hwui, the Hung-League or Heaven-Earth-League. A Secret Society with the Chinese in China and India_, Batavia, 1866.

[263] _Missionary Chronicle_, Vol. XIV., p. 140. Smith’s _China_, p. 250.

[264] For cases of this sort in Cambodia, Rémusat makes mention of a variety of ordeals which curiously resemble those resorted to on the continent of Europe during the Middle Ages. _Nouveaux Mélanges_, Tome I., p. 126.

[265] Heeren informs us that a similar insignia was used in Persia in early days.

[266] W. C. Milne, _Life in China_, London, 1857, p. 99.

[267] Dr. H. M. Field, _From Egypt to Japan_, Chap. XXIV., passim. New York, 1877. _Chinese Repository_, Vol. IV., pp. 214, 260.

[268] Persons who commit suicide also dress themselves in their best, the common notion being that in the next world they will wear the same garments in which they died.