“Oh, alas! imperial Heaven, were not the world afflicted by extraordinary changes, I would not dare to present extraordinary services. But this year the drought is most unusual. Summer is past, and no rain has fallen. Not only do agriculture and human beings feel the dire calamity, but also beasts and insects, herbs and trees, almost cease to live. I, the minister of Heaven, am placed over mankind, and am responsible for keeping the world in order and tranquillizing the people. Although it is now impossible for me to sleep or eat with composure, although I am scorched with grief and tremble with anxiety, still, after all, no genial and copious showers have been obtained.
“Some days ago I fasted, and offered rich sacrifices on the altars of the gods of the land and the grain, and had to be thankful for gathering clouds and slight showers; but not enough to cause gladness. Looking up, I consider that Heaven’s heart is benevolence and love. The sole cause is the daily deeper atrocity of my sins; but little sincerity and little devotion. Hence I have been unable to move Heaven’s heart, and bring down abundant blessings.
“Having searched the records, I find that in the twenty-fourth year of Kienlung my exalted Ancestor, the Emperor Pure, reverently performed a ‘great snow service.’ I feel impelled, by ten thousand considerations, to look up and imitate the usage, and with trembling anxiety rashly assail Heaven, examine myself, and consider my errors; looking up and hoping that I may obtain pardon. I ask myself whether in sacrificial services I have been disrespectful? Whether or not pride and prodigality have had a place in my heart, springing forth there unobserved? Whether, from length of time, I have become remiss in attending to the affairs of government, and have been unable to attend to them with that serious diligence and strenuous effort which I ought? Whether I have uttered irreverent words, and have deserved reprehension? Whether perfect equity has been attained in conferring rewards or inflicting punishments? Whether in raising mausolea and laying out gardens I have distressed the people and wasted property? Whether in the appointment of officers I have failed to obtain fit persons, and thereby the acts of government have been petty and vexatious to the people? Whether punishments have been unjustly inflicted or not? Whether the oppressed have found no means of appeal? Whether in persecuting heterodox sects the innocent have not been involved? Whether or not the magistrates have insulted the people and refused to listen to their affairs? Whether, in the successive military operations on the western frontiers, there may not have been the horrors of human slaughter for the sake of imperial rewards? Whether the largesses bestowed on the afflicted southern provinces were properly applied, or the people were left to die in the ditches? Whether the efforts to exterminate or pacify the rebellious mountaineers of Hunan and Kwangtung were properly conducted; or whether they led to the inhabitants being trampled on as mire and ashes? To all these topics to which my anxieties have been directed I ought to lay the plumb-line, and strenuously endeavor to correct what is wrong; still recollecting that there may be faults which have not occurred to me in my meditations.
“Prostrate I beg imperial Heaven (Hwang Tien) to pardon my ignorance and stupidity, and to grant me self-renovation; for myriads of innocent people are involved by me, the One man. My sins are so numerous it is difficult to escape from them. Summer is past and autumn arrived; to wait longer will really be impossible. Knocking head, I pray imperial Heaven to hasten and confer gracious deliverance—a speedy and divinely beneficial rain, to save the people’s lives and in some degree redeem my iniquities. Oh, alas! imperial Heaven, observe these things. Oh, alas! imperial Heaven, be gracious to them. I am inexpressibly grieved, alarmed, and frightened. Reverently this memorial is presented.”[254]
This paper apparently intimates some acknowledgment of a ruling power above, and before a despot like the Emperor of China would place himself in such an equivocal posture before his people, he would assure himself very thoroughly of their sentiments; for its effects as a state paper would be worse than null if the least ridicule was likely to be thrown upon it. In this case heavy showers followed the same evening, and appropriate thanksgivings were ordered and oblations presented before the six altars of heaven, earth, land, and grain, and the gods of heaven, earth, and the revolving year.
METHODS OF PUBLISHING EDICTS.
The orders of the court are usually transmitted in manuscript, except when some grand event or state ceremony requires a general proclamation, in which cases the document is printed on yellow paper and published in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, encircled with a border of dragons. The governors and their subordinates, imperial commissioners, and collectors of customs are the principal officers in the provinces who publish their orders to the people, consisting of admonitions, exhortations, regulations, laws, special ordinances, threatenings, and municipal requirements. Standing laws and local regulations are often superbly carved on tablets of black marble, and placed in the streets to be “held in everlasting remembrance,” so that no one can plead ignorance; a custom which recalls the mode of publishing the Twelve Tables at Rome. Several of these monuments, beautifully ornamented, are to be seen at Canton and Macao. The usual mode of publishing the commands of government is to print the document in large characters, and post copies at the door of the offices and in the streets in public places, with the seal of the officer attached to authenticate them. The sheets on which they are printed being common bamboo paper, and having no protection from the weather, are, however, soon destroyed; the people read them as they are thus exposed, and copy them if they wish, but it is not uncommon, too, for the magistrates to print important edicts in pamphlet form for circulation. These placards are written in an official style, differing from common writing as much as that does in English, but not involved or obscure. A single specimen of an edict issued at Canton will suffice to illustrate the form of such papers, and moreover show upon what subjects a Chinese ruler sometimes legislates, and the care he is expected to take of the people.
EDICT FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF GRASSHOPPERS.
“Sü and Hwang, by special appointment magistrates of the districts of Nanhai and Pwanyu, raised ten steps and recorded ten times, hereby distinctly publish important rules for the capture of grasshoppers, that it may be known how to guard against them in order to ward off injury and calamity. On the 7th day of the 8th month in the 13th year of Taukwang [September 20, 1833], we received a communication from the prefect of the [department of Kwangchau], transmitting a despatch from their excellencies the governor-general and governor, as follows:
“‘During the fifth month of the present year flights of grasshoppers appeared in the limits of Kwangsí, in [the departments of] Liu, Tsin, Kwei, and Wu, and their vicinage, which have already, according to report, been clean destroyed and driven off. We have heard that in the department of Kauchau and its neighborhood, conterminous to Kwangsí, grasshoppers have appeared which multiply with extreme rapidity. At this time the second crop is in the blade (which if destroyed will endamage the people), and it is proper, therefore, immediately, wherever they are found, to capture and drive them off, marshalling the troops to advance and wholly exterminate them. But Kwangtung heretofore has never experienced this calamity, and we apprehend the officers and people do not understand the mode of capture; wherefore we now exhibit in order the most important rules for catching grasshoppers. Let the governor’s combined forces be immediately instructed to capture them secundum artem; at the same time let orders be issued for the villagers and farmers at once to assemble and take them, and for the magistrate to establish storehouses for their reception and purchase, thus without fail sweeping them clean away. If you do not exert yourselves to catch the grasshoppers, your guilt will be very great; let it be done carefully, not clandestinely delaying, thus causing this misfortune to come upon yourselves, transgressing the laws, and causing us again, according to the exigencies of the case, to promulgate general orders and make thorough examination, etc., etc. Appended hereto are copies of the rules for catching grasshoppers, which from the lieutenant-governor must be sent to the treasurer, who will enjoin it upon the magistrates of the departments, and he again upon the district magistrates.’