The following is the translation of the “Order of rites observed in receiving the imperial mandate, raising lamentation, and laying aside the mourning clothes, on occasion of the grand ceremony following the demise of an empress.” It was circulated in Canton as a supplement to the daily court circular. When the imperial mandate, written on yellow paper, comes down the river, an officer is immediately deputed to receive and guard it at the imperial landing place. The master of ceremonies leads the officer, and directs him to receive the mandate with uplifted hands; land and deposite it safely in the dragon dome, (a kind of carriage borne by sixteen or thirty-two men,) and spread it out in proper form. The civil and military officers in plain dresses, then kneel down in order, in the “Sunny-side pavillion,” and so remain until the mandate has passed. When they have risen, the officer leads the procession to the grand gate of the examination court; the civil and military officers then first enter the “most public hall,” and there kneel down, the civilians on the east side, and the military on the west, until the dragon-dome has passed; after which they rise and wait till the dome has entered the hall of the constellation Kwei. In this hall an embroidered yellow curtain and incense-table, must previously be prepared, and an officer be sent to receive, with reverence, the imperial mandate and safely lay it on the table. When this has been done all the officers enter; upon which the master of ceremonies cries out: “Range yourselves in order, perform the ceremony of thrice kneeling, and nine times knocking the head.” He then requests to have the mandate read aloud; and the public official reader raises up the mandate to read it.
Master of Ceremonies. “Officers—all kneel—hear the proclamation read—(and when the reading is concluded he continues)—rise—raise lamentation.” The officers do so accordingly. After the lamentation, the reader places the mandate on the yellow table, and the master of ceremonies calls out: “Deliver the imperial mandate.” An officer is then sent to the yellow table, who raises up the mandate, and delivers it to the governor, kneeling. The governor having received it, rises, and delivers it to the Poo-ching-sze, also kneeling; the latter officer in turn rises, and delivers it to his chief clerk, likewise kneeling. The clerk rises and takes it to the hall of Tsze-wei, (in the Poo-ching-sze’s office,) to be printed on yellow paper.
Master of Ceremonies. “Officers—all put on mourning dresses.” The officers then retire; when they have changed their dresses, the master of ceremonies leads them back, and gives the order: “Arrange yourselves, thrice kneel and nine times knock head—rise—raise lamentation—(after lamentation)—eat.” The officers then go out to the hall of abstinence, where they eat a little, the civil and military each taking their respective sides. The master of ceremonies then cries: “Retire.” They retire to the “public place,” and in the evening reassemble, and perform the same ceremonies. At night, they sleep in the public place, separate from their families. The same ceremonies are performed in the morning and evening of the two following days, after which the officers return to their ordinary duties.
When the mandate has been copied, an officer is sent with it to the hall of the constellation Kwei, to place it on the yellow table, and another is sent to burn incense and keep respectful charge of it for twenty-seven days; after which it is delivered to the Poo-ching-sze, and sent back to the board of rites. On the twenty-seventh day, the officers assemble as before, and, after the same ceremonies of lamentation have been gone through, the master of ceremonies gives the order: “Take off mourning—put on plain clothes—remove the table of incense.” All then return home and the mourning ceremonies are at an end.
The population contained in the eighteen provinces of the Chinese empire, according to the census taken in the eighteenth year of the emperor Keenlung, (corresponding to the year 1812,) amounted to three hundred and sixty-one millions, six hundred and ninety-eight thousand, eight hundred and seventy-nine souls. This statement is taken from a work called the “Ta-tsing-hwny-teen,” a collection of statutes of the “Ta-tsing dynasty,” published by government, in sixteen duodecimo volumes, for the use of its own officers; it furnishes the data on which the government acts in levying taxes, &c. All the people are included excepting, we believe, those who are employed in the civil and military service of the emperor. The mode of taking the census is very minute and particular; every province is divided into foos and chows; these are subdivided into heens; from the heen the sub-division is carried down to the kea, which consists of only ten families. Ten keas make a paou, or neighbourhood of one hundred families, which has a headman or constable, whose duty it is to watch over the whole; and among other things, to keep a list of all the families and individuals within his jurisdiction; it is also the duty of this constable to report the names of those within his limits to the chief officer of the heen; who reports to the chief officer foo; he again to the treasurer of the province; who in his turn, annually, on the tenth moon, reports to the board of revenue at Peking. Such is the division and the order required by the laws of the land. This system certainly enables the government to know, and to state accurately, the number of individuals, not only in every province, but in any given district of each or any one of the provinces.
The Chinese empire having remained undisturbed by wars, or by internal commotions of much importance, for more than one hundred and twenty years, an accumulation has taken place on a comparatively small spot, of a moiety of all the human beings which are now in existence. On a first view of this immense, this incomprehensible number of living beings, we can scarcely believe the evidence of our senses or conceive how it is possible that sustenance can be procured for such an assemblage; but when we have ascertained that the country is nearly destitute of flocks and herds, that the ground is almost exclusively appropriated to the feeding and clothing of its inhabitants, that there are a less number of souls, by seventy to the square mile, than is found in the dutchy of Lucca, and but five more in the same space than in the Netherlands, which contains two hundred and seventy-five, our wonder in a great degree ceases, and we are compelled to believe that the Chinese government has published as accurate a statement of its population as any European government, or that of the United States: nor can we conceive what object the government can have in deceiving its own subjects, for the work is evidently not published for the use of curious inquirers abroad. It is also well known, that the inhabitants live in the most frugal manner, that a bowl of rice with a few vegetables, or perhaps a little fish or fowl, which is very abundant, is the entire provision of multitudes.
Large portions of the country yield two crops annually, and those generally very abundant; the inhabitants also obtain provisions from the Persian gulf to the bay of Bengal, from Burmah, Siam and Cochin-China, and from every important island throughout the great Indian Archipelago. Every animal and vegetable substance is also an edible with one class or other of the people. Large quantities of vegetable produce, which in any other country would be devoured by the flocks and herds, are here consumed by human beings. If we regard the produce of the soil, and the manner in which the people live, we have strong presumptive evidence of a very numerous population.
HABITS OF THE CHINESE.
The Chinese of the present day are grossly superstitious; they offer sacrifices to the manes of deceased relatives and friends, and emblems of money and clothes are consumed on the supposition that a substantial benefit will be transferred to the individual in the world of spirits.
In their habits they are most depraved and vicious; gambling is universal and is carried to a most ruinous and criminal extent; they use the most pernicious drugs as well as the most intoxicating liquors to produce intoxication; they are also gross gluttons; every thing that runs, walks, creeps, flies, or swims, in fact, every thing that will supply the place of food, whether of the sea, or the land, and articles most disgusting to other people, are by them greedily devoured. The government has a code of laws, written in blood; the most horrid tortures are used to force confessions, and the judges are noted for being grossly corrupt; the variety and ingenuity displayed in prolonging the tortures of miserable criminals who are finally intended to be deprived of life, can only be conceived by a people refined in cruelty, blood-thirsty, and inhuman.