China and the Chinese

by Herbert Allen Giles

If the Emperor rules wisely and well, with only the happiness of his people at heart, there will be no sign from above, beyond peace and plenty in the Empire, and now and then a double ear of corn in the fields—a phenomenon which will be duly recorded in the Peking Gazette. But should there be anything like laxness or incapacity, or still worse, degradation and vice, then a comet may perhaps appear, a pestilence may rage, or a famine, to warn the erring ruler to give up his evil ways.

And just as the Emperor is responsible to Heaven, so are the viceroys and governors of the eighteen provinces—to speak only of China proper—nominally responsible to him, in reality to the six departments of state at Peking, which constitute the central government, and to which a seventh has recently been added—a department for foreign affairs.

So long as all goes well—and in ordinary times that "all" is confined to a regular and sufficient supply of revenue paid into the Imperial Treasury—viceroys and governors of provinces are, as nearly as can be, independent rulers, each in his own domain.

For purposes of government, in the ordinary sense of the term, the 18 provinces are subdivided into 80 areas known as "circuits," and over each of these is set a high official, who is called an intendant of circuit, or in Chinese a Tao-t'ai. His circuit consists of 2 or more prefectures, of which there are in all 282 distributed among the 80 circuits, or about an average of 3 prefectures to each.

Every prefecture is in turn subdivided into several magistracies, of which there are 1477 in all, distributed among the 282 prefectures, or about an average of 5 magistracies to each.

Immediately below the magistrates may be said to come the people; though naturally an official who rules over an area as big as an average English county can scarcely be brought into personal touch with all those under his jurisdiction. This difficulty is bridged over by the appointment of a number of head men, or headboroughs, who are furnished with wooden seals, and who are held responsible for the peace and good order of the wards or boroughs over which they are set. The post is considered an honourable one, involving as it does a quasi-official status. It is also more or less lucrative, as it is necessary that all petitions to the magistrate, all conveyances of land, and other legal instruments, should bear the seal of the head man, as a guarantee of good faith, a small fee being payable on each notarial act.

On the other hand, the post is occasionally burdensome and trying in the extreme. For instance, if a head man fails to produce any criminals or accused persons, either belonging to, or known to be, in his district, he is liable to be bambooed or otherwise severely punished.

In ordinary life the head man is not distinguishable from the masses of his fellow-countrymen. He may often be seen working like the rest, and even walking about with bare legs and bare feet.

Thus in a descending scale we have the Emperor, the viceroys and governors of the 18 provinces, the intendants, or Tao-t'ais, of the 80 circuits, the prefects of the 282 prefectures, the magistrates of the 1477 magistracies, the myriad headboroughs, and the people.

The district magistrates, so far as officials are concerned, are the real rulers of China, and in conjunction with the prefects are popularly called "father-and-mother" officials, as though they stood in loco parentium to the people, whom, by the way, they in turn often speak of, even in official documents, as "the babies."