regulation) to be capable of standing a siege. In each of these cities is stationed a civil mandarin, who is an allimportant official for the Chinese people, and therefore for the Chinese government. He is at once the director of police, the sheriff, the coroner, the receiver of taxes, and, what weighs more than all, the judge at first instance of all cases civil and criminal that occur within the bounds of his shire or district. He is called by our translators, the district magistrate; but it will be seen from the above, that the word "magistrate" indicates but very inadequately the extent of his powers and duties. He has always one other civil mandarin under him, and in the same city; viz., the inspector of police or prison-master; who is specially responsible to him and to the Imperial Government, for the custody of the prisoners in the district jail.* In more populous districts he is aided by one or two inspectors of police stationed out at towns or large villages of his district; and often by an official, of a little higher rank than the preceding and entitled by foreigners the assistant-district-magistrate. There are also one or two educational mandarins stationed in every district city to assist the district magistrate in the primary examination of candidates for the public service; the superintendence of which forms another of his multifarious duties. All these subordinates are mandarins, i. e. functionaries deriving their appointments from the central imperial government, and fitted by social standing to appear at the table of the magistrate himself. But besides these he has under him a whole host of lower agents: clerks, judicial and fiscal, tax-gatherers, bailiffs, turnkeys and policemen.

There are two of these officers in Ching too the capital of Sze chuen, with one of whom M. Huc was lodged during his stay there. He and his companion were in fact "in prison" though not actually lodged in the common jail, and the two vigorous individuals whom M. Huc so amusingly describes, but whom he calls "mandarins d'honneur," were in reality special "guards" appointed for the better security of prisoners of unusual importance. Hence they stood at the back of M. Huc and his companion, when the latter were being examined by the assembled authorities.

The next kind of territorial divisions for administrative purposes on which it is necessary to fix the attention are the departments,* each of which is composed of a group of the districts just described. The departments vary greatly in size, some consisting of only two or three districts, others of as many as twelve or fifteen. The average throughout the Eighteen provinces is six districts to a department. At the head of the affairs of each department stands a civilian, the prefect or departmental judge. To him suitors may appeal from the district courts. His Yamun or official residence is in a subject district city, which then ceases to be called such and is known as the departmental-city. It is the often occurring Foo of the maps of China.

A few departments, on an average, three, are again grouped into circuits at the head of which stands a civilian called, Intendant (Taou tae). To him appeals lie from the departmental courts, but he performs in reality very few judicial or fiscal duties; being rather a superintending administrator of general affairs. He is the lowest civilian that exercises a direct ex-officio authority over the military, an authority which comes into play in the case of local risings against the proceedings of his subordinates. He usually resides in one of the foo or departmental cities; but when these have been outstripped in wealth and population by one of the district cities of his circuit, he is sometimes stationed in such district city.t

All the above-named officials: district magistrates, prefects and intendants, are distributed throughout the provinces in their respective jurisdictions. We have now to consider those functionaries who are stationed in the Provincialcapital, or chief city of each province; and who manage all the affairs of such province in behalf of the Imperial Central Government at Peking.

They have two names in Chinese, Foo and Chih le chow.

+ The Intendant at the district city of Shanghae is an instance. Amoy, where the Intendant of the Circuit resides, is not even a district city.

The first is an official charged with the general control of all affairs. In some provinces he bears the title of Governor, in others that of Governor General, but his powers and duties are the same in all. He is Commander in chief as well as principal civilian, in the province, and is the only official in it who is empowered to write to the Cabinet Council and to address the Emperor,† with whom he maintains a constant correspondence on all affairs. This privilege, more than any other, confirms his already ex-officio power over all other mandarins in the province; any one of whom he can suspend in the first place, and then denounce to the Emperor for degradation or absolute dismissal. We may add that he has the legal power of issuing death-warrants in certain flagrant cases, such as piracy, gang robbery, &c.

Immediately under the Governor stand three officials whose authority extends to all parts of the province; but only in matters relating to that branch of public business with which each is specially entrusted. These are, the Superintendent of Provincial Finances, the Provincial Criminal Judge, and the Provincial Educational Examiner.

The first receives the taxes from the district magistrates;

In five of the eighteen provinces there is both a Governor and a Governorgeneral; the latter of whom exercises an authority over one or two of the adjoining provinces in addition to that in which he is stationed. But as he is, even in this latter, rather the superordinated associate than the official chief of the Governor, with whom he divides the duties and powers (that of addressing the Emperor included), it is not requisite to the right comprehension of the administrative system to think of more than one such superior official in each province. Both the Governor and the Governor General (whose title is in Chinese literally tsung tuh, general governor) have been called viceroys, a confusing designation for Europeans. For these mandarins are not men of high hereditary rank, noblemen or princes, taken from private life and sent to the provinces to represent the Imperial dignity. They are regular members of the civil service, who took in early life one of the higher degrees at the public examinations, and commenced their official career with one of the subordinate posts; not a few as district magistrates.

+ Some of the superior military officers have this right as regards the affairs of the army, but they rarely avail themselves of a privilege the exercise of which would draw on them the enmity of the Governor, in whose hands therefore the advancement to all the better military posts virtually lies.