nected with the imperial family have been named. The immediate assistants of the Emperor are

nese.

I. The Nuy-ko. This is the great council of state. The chief counsellors are four, two Tartars and two ChiBesides these, there are several others, of inferior rank, who, in conjunction with them, constitute the council. Almost all the members of the Nuy-ko are selected from the imperial college of the Hânlin.

II. The Keun-ky-tâ-chin. This is a body of privy councillors.

III. The Lew-poo, or six boards for conducting the details of public business. They are, 1. The Board of Appointments, having cognizance of the conduct of all civil officers; 2. The Board of Revenue, whose duties extend to all fiscal matters; 3. The Board of Rites and Ceremonies, which keeps watch and ward over the public morals, and is the only setter of the fashions in China; 4. The Military Board, charged with the affairs of the army and navy; 5. The Supreme Court of Criminal Jurisdiction; and 6. The Board of Public Works.

IV. The Lyfân-yuen, or Office for Foreign Affairs. Its duties embrace all the external relations of the empire. The members of the Lyfân-yuen are always Mongol or Manchow Tartars.

V. The Too-cha-yuen. This is a body of censors, forty or fifty in number. They are sent into different parts of the empire as imperial inspectors, which means spies. By an ancient custom, they are at liberty to give any advice to their master without the hazard of losing their life; but blunt honesty is not often relished by the great from any quarter, and unpalatable remonstrances have not seldom cost their authors the favour in which they had before basked.

The provinces are governed each by a chief magis

trate, entitled foo-yuen, or two together are under the government of a tsoong-to, who has foo-yuens under him. Canton and Kuâng-sy are subject to a tsoong-to, called by Europeans, viceroy of Canton. The governors of the provinces have, subordinate to them, an army of civil magistrates amounting to fourteen thousand. No individual is permitted to hold office in the province where he was born; and public functionaries interchange places periodically, to prevent the formation of too intimate connexions with the people under their government. A quarterly publication is made, by authority, of the name, birth-place, &c. of every official person in the Empire; and once in three years, a report is sent up to the board of official appointments, by the foo-yuen of each province, containing the names of all the officers in his government, and a full statement concerning their conduct and character, received from the immediate superiors of each. Every officer is held to a strict responsibility for the good behaviour and fidelity of all who are under him. Letters are held in higher esteem than arms, and the civil officers of course outrank the military. This may be set down to their credit, as it is certainly a mark of social advancement.

No man in China inherits office, nor does hereditary rank enjoy much consideration or influence. This fact is placed in a strong light by the following anecdote, related by Sir George Staunton, secretary to Lord Macartney's embassy. Among the presents for the Emperor was a volume of portraits of the British nobility. That the inspection of them might be more satisfactory to his Majesty, a mandarin was employed to mark, in Chinese characters, on the margin, the names and rank of the persons represented. When he came to the print of an English duke, from a portrait taken in childhood, and

was told that the original was a ta-zhin, or great man, of very high rank, he had so little conception of a child's being qualified, by hereditary right, to be possessed of such a dignity, that he gave a look of surprise, and laying down his pencil, exclaimed, that he could not venture to describe him in that manner, for the Emperor knew very well how to distinguish a great man from a boy.

The penal code of China is an interesting subject. If we go upon the principle of judging the tree by its fruits, and look at this code in connexion with its results, we shall be compelled to allow that it is wisely framed and efficiently administered. It is lucidly arranged under six principal divisions, corresponding to the six boards above described. It is not needful to enumerate the several heads of chapters embraced in these divisions. The principal defects of the code, in the opinion of Mr. Davis, are, 1. A constant meddling with those relative duties which had better be left to other sanctions than positive laws; 2. A minute attention to trifles, contrary to the European maxim, de minimis non curat lex; and 3. An occasional indulgence in those vague generalities, by which the benefits of a written code are in a great measure annulled. A prominent feature of the Chinese criminal law is the marked and unrelenting severity with which it punishes treason, not only in the person of the traitor, but in those of his unoffending offspring, even the suckling at the breast. The whole are cut off at one fell blow. It is impossible to read the recital of some of these punishments, so abhorrent to humanity and justice, without a sentiment of indignation as well as of sympathy.

"The most common instrument of punishment is the bamboo, whose dimensions are exactly defined. The number of blows, attached gradatim with such precision to every individual offence, answers the purpose of

a scale or measurement of the degrees of crime; and this punishment being often commutable for fine or otherwise, the apparent quantity of flagellation is of course greater than the real. The next punishment is the kea, or cangue, which has been called the wooden collar, being a species of walking pillory, in which the prisoner is paraded, with his offence inscribed. It is sometimes worn for a month together, and as the hand cannot be put to the mouth, the wearer must be fed by others."* After this comes banishment to some place in China, and then exile beyond the Chinese frontier, either for a term of years or for life. There are three kinds of capital punishment, strangulation, decollation, and, for treason, lingchy, "a disgraceful and lingering death," styled by Europeans, cutting into ten thousand pieces. A debtor who does not "pay up," after the expiration of a certain specified period, becomes liable to the bamboo.

We will close this very imperfect notice of the Chinese criminal law, with the following testimony of an able writer in the Edinburgh Review. He says:-"The most remarkable thing in this code is its great reasonableness, clearness, and consistency; the business-like brevity and directness of the various provisions, and the plainness and moderation of the language in which they are expressed. It is a clear, concise, and distinct series of enactments, savouring throughout of practical judgment and European good sense. When we turn from the ravings of the Zendavesta, or the Puranas, to the tone of sense and of business of this Chinese collection, we seem to be passing from darkness to light-from the drivellings of dotage to the exercise of an improved understanding: and, redundant and minute as these laws are in many

*Davis.

particulars, we scarcely know any European code that is at once so copious and so consistent, or that is nearly so free from intricacy, bigotry and fiction.'

It is generally supposed that the Chinese claim to have authentic annals extending back to a date anterior to the period usually assigned to the creation of the world. This, however, is an erroneous supposition. It is true that they have a fabulous history which pretends to relate events occurring we know not how many thousand ages ago; but intelligent Chinese scholars consider and admit this to be a pure invention. They claim, indeed, a high antiquity, and there can be no doubt that the claim is well founded. It is probable, that Alexander might have spared his tears, and saved himself the perpetration of an egregious folly, had he known that, far beyond the Ganges, there lay an empire vaster and mightier than any with whose power he had grappled ;-an empire flourishing in the arts of civilized life, and destined to survive, in a green and vigorous old age, long after the last vestiges of his ill-gotten power had disappeared from the earth.

A full development of the causes which have given strength and stability to the Chinese empire, which have matured and perpetuated its institutions, would be an interesting and instructive labour. We cannot pretend to attempt it, but may, in passing, throw out a few hints upon the subject. There can be no doubt, that the sea and the mountain barriers by which China is surrounded, the unwarlike character of her neighbours, her almost total isolation from the rest of the world, her vigilant police, the elegibility of all classes to the trusts and dignities of office, and the rigid system of responsibility enforced upon her officers, have all had their share in the result. But these causes are insufficient to explain the phenomenon. The most powerful agent, beyond all ques