In 1821 there were four hundred robbers taken on the borders of Fuhkien; in 1827 two hundred were seized in the south of the province, and forty-one more brought to Canton from the eastward. The governor offered $1,000 reward for the capture of one leader, and $3,000 for another. The judge of the province put forth a proclamation upon the subject in the same year, in which he says there were four hundred and thirty undecided cases of robbery by brigands then on the calendar; and in 1846 there were upward of two thousand waiting his decision, for each of which there were perhaps five or six persons in prison or under constraint until the case was settled. These bands prowl in the large cities and commit great cruelties. In 1830 a party of five hundred openly plundered a rich man’s house in the western suburbs of Canton; and in Shunteh, south of the city, $600 were paid for the ransom of two persons carried off by them. The ex-governor, in 1831, was attacked by them near the Mei ling pass on his departure from Canton, and plundered of about ten thousand dollars. The magistrates of Hiangshan district, south of Canton, were ordered by their superiors the same year to apprehend five hundred of the robbers. Priests sometimes harbor gangs in their temples and divide the spoils with them, and occasionally go out themselves on predatory excursions. No mercy is shown these miscreants when they are taken, but the multiplication of executions has no effect in deterring them from crime.
DIFFICULTY IN COLLECTING TAXES.
Cruelty to individual prisoners does not produce so much disturbance to the general peace of the community as the forcible attempts of officers to collect taxes. The people have the impression that their rulers exact more than is legal, and consequently consider opposition to the demands of the tax-gatherer as somewhat justifiable, which compels, of course, more stringent measures on the part of the authorities, whose station depends not a little on their punctuality in remitting the taxes. Bad harvests, floods, or other public calamities render the people still more disinclined to pay the assessments. In 1845 a serious disturbance arose near Ningpo on this account, which with unimportant differences could probably be paralleled in every prefecture in the land. The people of Funghwa hien having refused to pay an onerous tax, the prefect of Ningpo seized three literary men of the place, who had been deputed to collect it, and put them in prison; this procedure so irritated the gentry that the candidates at the literary examination which occurred at Funghwa soon afterward, on being assembled at the public hall before the chíhien, rose upon him and beat him severely. They were still further incensed against him from having recently detected him in deceitful conduct regarding a petition they had made at court to have their taxes lightened; he had kept the answer and pocketed the difference. He was consequently superseded by another magistrate, and a deputy of the intendant of circuit was sent with the new incumbent to restore order. But the deputy, full of his importance, carried himself so haughtily that the excited populace treated him in the same manner, and he barely escaped with his life to Ningpo. The intendant and prefect, finding matters rising to such a pitch, sent a detachment of twelve hundred troops to keep the peace, but part of these were decoyed within the walls and attacked with such vigor that many of them were made prisoners, a colonel and a dozen privates killed, and two or three hundred wounded or beaten, and all deprived of their arms. In this plight they returned to Ningpo, and, as the distance is not great, apprehensions were entertained lest the insurgents should follow up their advantage by organizing themselves and marching upon the city to seize the prefect. The officers sent immediately to Hangchau for assistance, from whence the governor sent a strong force of ten thousand men to restore order, and soon after arrived himself. He demanded three persons to be given up who had been active in fomenting the resistance, threatening in case of non-compliance that he would destroy the town; the prefect and his deputy from the intendant’s office were suspended and removed to another post. These measures restored quiet to a considerable extent.[263]
The existence of such evils in Chinese society would rapidly disorganize it were it not for the conservative influence upon society of early education and training in industry. The government takes care to avail itself of this better element in public opinion, and grounds thereon a basis of action for the establishment of good order. But this, and ten thousand similar instances, only exhibit more strongly how great a work there is to be done before high and low, people and rulers, will understand their respective duties and rights; before they will, on the one hand, pay that regard to the authority of their rulers which is necessary for the maintenance of good order, and, on the other, resist official tyranny in preserving their own liberties.
If the character of the officers, therefore, be such as has been briefly shown—open to bribery, colluding with criminals, sycophantic toward superiors, and cruel to the people; and the constituents of society present so many repulsive features—opposing clans engaged in deadly feuds, bandits scouring the country to rob, policemen joining to oppress, truth universally disregarded, selfishness the main principle of action, and almost every disorganizing element but imperfectly restrained from violent outbreaks and convulsions, it will not be expected that the regular proceedings of the courts and the execution of the laws will prove on examination to be any better than the materials of which they are composed. As civil and criminal cases are all judged by one officer, one court tries nearly all the questions which arise. A single exception is provided for in the code, wherein it is ordered that “in cases of adultery, robbery, fraud, assaults, breach of laws concerning marriage, landed property or pecuniary contracts, or any other like offences committed by or against individuals in the military class—if any of the people are implicated or concerned, the military commanding officer and the civil magistrate shall have a concurrent jurisdiction.”[264]
CHARACTER OF JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS.
At the bottom of the judicial scale are the village elders. This incipient element of the democratic principle has also existed in India in much the same form; but while its power ended in the local eldership there, in China it is only the lowest step of the scale. The elders give character to the village, and are expected to manage its public affairs, settle disputes among its inhabitants, arrange matters with other villages, and answer to the magistrates on its behalf. The code provides that all persons having complaints and informations address themselves in the first instance to the lowest tribunal of justice in the district, from which the cognizance of the affair may be transferred to the superior tribunals. The statement of the case is made in writing, and the officer is required to act upon it immediately; if the parties are dissatisfied with the award, the judgment of the lower courts is carried up to the superior ones. No case can be carried directly to the Emperor; it must go through the Board of Punishments; old men and women, however, sometimes present petitions to him on his journeys, but such appeals seldom occur, owing to the difficulty of access. The captains in charge of the gates of Peking, in 1831, presented a memorial upon the subject, in which they attribute the number of appeals to the obstinacy of many persons in pressing their cases and the remissness of local officers, so that even women and girls of ten years of age take long journeys to Peking to state their cases. The memorialists recommend that an order be issued requiring the two high provincial officers to adjudicate all cases, either themselves or by a court of errors, and not send the complainants back to the district magistrates. These official porters must have been much troubled with young ladies coming to see his Majesty, or perhaps were advised to present such a paper to afford a text for the Emperor to preach from; to confer such power upon the governor and his associates would almost make them the irresponsible sovereigns of the provinces. Appeals frequently arise out of delay in obtaining justice, owing to the amount of business in the courts; for the calendar may be expected to increase when the magistrate leaves his post to curry favor with his superiors. The almost utter impossibility of learning the truth of the case brought before them, either from the principal parties or the witnesses, must be borne in mind when deciding upon the oppressive proceedings of the magistrates to elicit the truth. Mention is made of one officer promoted for deciding three hundred cases in a year; again of a district magistrate who tried upward of a thousand within the same period; while a third revised and decided more than six hundred in which the parties had appealed. What becomes of the appeals in such cases, or whose decision stands, does not appear; but if such proceedings are common, it accounts for the constant practice of sending appeals back to be revised, probably after a change in the incumbent.
Few or no civil cases are reported in the Gazette as being carried up to higher courts, and probably only a small proportion of them are brought before the authorities, the rest being settled by reference. Appeals to court receive attention, and it may be inferred, too, that many of them are mentioned in the Gazette in order that the carefulness of the supreme government in revising the unjust decrees against the people should be known through the country, and this additional check to malversation on the part of the lower courts be of some use. Many cases are reported of widows and daughters, sons and nephews, of murdered persons, to whom the revenge of kindred rightly belongs, appealing against the unjust decrees of the local magistrates, and then sent back to the place they came from; this, of course, was tantamount to a nolle prosequi. At other times the wicked judges have been degraded and banished. One case is reported of a man who found his way to the capital from Fuhkien to complain against the magistracy and police, who protected a clan by whom his only son had been shot, in consideration of a bribe of $2,000. His case could not be understood at Peking in consequence of his local pronunciation, which indicates that all cases are not reported in writing. One appeal is reported against the governor of a province for not carrying into execution the sentence of death passed on two convicted murderers; and another appellant requests that two persons, who were bribed to undergo the sentence of the law instead of the real murderers, might not be substituted—he, perhaps, fearing their subsequent vengeance.
STYLE OF OFFICIAL ESTABLISHMENTS.
All officers of government are supposed to be accessible at any time, and the door of justice to be open to all who claim a hearing; and in fact, courts are held at all hours of night and day, though the regular time is from sunrise to noonday. The style of address varies according to the rank; tajin, or magnate, for the highest, ta laoyé, or great Sir, and laoyé, Sir, for the lower grade, are the most common. A drum is said to be placed at the inferior tribunals, as well as before the Court of Representation in Peking, which the plaintiff strikes in order to make his presence known, though from the number of hangers-on about the doors of official residences, the necessity of employing this mode of attracting notice is rare. At the gate of the governor-general’s palace are placed six tablets, having appropriate inscriptions for those who have been wronged by wicked officers; for those who have suffered from thieves; for persons falsely accused; for those who have been swindled; for such as have been grieved by other parties; and lastly, for those who have secret information to impart. The people, however, are aware how useless it would be to inscribe their appeals upon these tablets; they write them out and carry them up to his excellency, or to the proper official—seldom forgetting the indispensable present.