highest military functions in the empire. They have also the control over the armies, both in the capital and the provinces, as well as the choice, promotion, and degradation of officers. The board is divided into four chambers, thus :

1. The chamber for the appointment of officers, and the despatch of orders.

2. The chamber for providing charts of the country; the distribution of the garrison; the investigation of crimes and merits; and the bestowment of rewards and punishments.

3. The chamber for superintending the posts, and providing horses for the cavalry soldiers. 4. The chamber for superintending the stores, and the examination of candidates for military service.

The Chinese government has thus apparently provided for an effectual army, sufficient to quell all internal rebellions and meet external foes. But

66

the reverse is the actual fact. The Chinese army is more a skeleton than a living body. Nearly the whole of the cavalry exists only on paper; and what does exist is nearly useless. The soldier, moreover, is not trained to fight for his country, but as a police runner, and an imperial hunter. During the greater part of the year he lives as a husbandman, or is engaged in trade, like the great body of the people, and hence he is unskilled in the art of war. The term which an old writer applied to the nations conquered by Alexander, namely, that they were men of straw," may, in strict propriety, be applied to the Chinese. Even bands of robbers and pirates have proved too strong for the force of the whole empire. Thus, in 1833, the present emperor issued this manifesto, which shows the weakness of the Chinese, at least, as regards their navy:According to the ancients, civilians need rubbing whilst governing a nation, and the military no less require a brushing. Government appoints soldiers for the protection of the people, and sailors are not less important to the public safety. But the navy has lately fallen off, which appears from many cases of failure on the high seas. On shore, the abilities of a man are measured by his archery and horsemanship; but the talent of a sailor is known by his ability to fight with and on the water. A sailor must know the winds and the clouds, and the lands and passages amongst the sands. He must be able to break a spear with the wind. Like a divinity, he must know how to plough the billows, handle a ship, and be always in order for action. Then when his spears are thrown,

66

they will pierce, and his guns will follow to give them effect. The spitting tornados of gunpowder will then reach the mark, and whenever pirates are met with, they will be wondrously vanquished. No aim will miss its mark. Pirates will be impoverished and crippled; and even on the high seas, when they take to flight, they will be followed, caught, and destroyed. Thus the monsters of the deep and the waves will be still, and the sea become a calm without a ripple. But far different from this has of late been the fact. The navy is a nihility! There is a name of going to sea, but there is no going in reality. Cases of piracy are frequently occurring, and even barbarian ships anchor in our inner seas with impunity. I look back on the past, and harbour dismal forebodings for the future!" Recent events have, doubtless, strengthened the emperor of China's opinion as to the "nihility," not only of his navy, but his army. They have discovered his weakness, and proved that his subjects are mere grown-up children.

THE BOARD OF PUNISHMENTS.

This board numbers two presidents, and two vice-presidents. Under these there are eighteen chambers, each of which has two deputy presidents, four assistants, two directors, and a number of clerks and petty officers.

These different chambers attend to all the prisons and appeals of their respective provinces, the confirmation and alteration of sentences, and the regulation of fines and mulcts. For the trials of the most important criminal cases, however, the members of the censorate and of the judicial

court are consulted. The censorate will be hereafter described. The judicial court is in intimate connexion with the board of punishments, and will be now noticed.

The Judicial Court.-The officers of this court are two presidents, two vice-presidents, six controllers, three over each of its chambers, and a great number of subordinate officers. Their duties are to revise the lists of those condemned to death, and minutely to investigate the accusations. No criminal can be executed by the provincial governments, unless the members of this tribunal agree with the officers of the board of punishments. The object of this institution is, in fact, to save the lives of any one unjustly condemned to die. But the whole seems to be more theory than otherwise, for the real power of life and death is in the hands of the emperor.

THE BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS.

This board has the same number of presidents and vice-presidents as the preceding. It is subdivided into four chambers, thus :

1. The Chamber of Architecture. With the Chinese, architecture is more the art of imitation than invention. It requires no genius, for every building is erected by rule. A model is given, and the more slavish the adherence to that model, the greater the perfection of the building is considered. It does not matter what the building may be. Cities, palaces, temples, walls, granaries, and common houses, all are built after their respective models, in which shape they have been erected for ages.

2. Chamber of Government Stores. The duties

of the officers of this chamber are to preserve all precious articles, and to provide every requisite for a camp.

3. Chamber of Hydraulics. This is a very important department. At all times it has works of the greatest magnitude under its control, such as raising and repairing dikes, irrigating the rice fields, repairing canals and the high roads, and building of the grain junks and men of war. This chamber is also intrusted with the care of the ice cellars at Pekin, which is one of the largest establishments of the court; and with making proper covers for books, and folding the documents and records of the court in yellow silk.

4. Chamber for Mausoleums. This chamber is charged with the task of building and repairing the graves, not only of the imperial family, but of meritorious officers who are buried at the publie charges. It likewise controls the workmen, and pays them from the treasure at its disposal. Moreover, there is a department called Che-tsaoukoo attached to this board, the members of which superintend the manufactures for the use of the emperor. Jewellery, silks, trinkets, carriages, sedans, and chariots, are all fabricated under the inspection of the members of this department; and they must take care that both the article and the workmanship are of the first order. Nothing is allowed to enter the palace which is not superior to every thing of its kind, and to imitate any thing imperial is accounted high treason.

Such, briefly, is the nature of the six supreme tribunals of the court of China. Each seems to be dependent on the other, but all are dependent on the sovereign. He it is who in reality rules,