Gatekeepers charge a fee on every petition that passes through their hands; gaolers, for a consideration and with proper security, allow their prisoners to be at large until wanted; clerks take bribes to use their influence, honestly or dishonestly, with the magistrate who is to try the case; and all the servants share equally in the gratuities given by anyone to whom their master may send presents. The amount, whatever it may be, is enclosed in a red envelope and addressed to the sender of the present, with the words “Instead of tea,” in large characters; the meaning being that the refreshments which should have been set before the servants who brought the gifts have been commuted by a money payment. This money is put into a general fund and equally divided at stated periods.
All Government officers holding a post, from the highest to the lowest, are entitled to a nominal, and what would be a quite inadequate, salary; but no one ever sees this. It is customary to refuse acceptance of it on some such grounds as want of merit, and refund it to the Imperial Treasury.
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[190] Anybody is liable to be “impressed” at any moment for the service of the Government. Boat owners, sedan-chair and coolie proprietors, especially dread the frequent and heavy calls that are made upon them for assistance, the remuneration they receive being in all cases insufficient to defray mere working expenses. But inasmuch as Chinese officials may not seize any men, or boats, or carts, holding passes to show that they are in the employ of a foreign merchant, a lively trade in such documents has sprung up in certain parts of China between the dishonest of the native and foreign commercial circles.
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[191] Constables, detectives, and others, are liable to be bambooed at intervals, generally of three or five days, until the mission on which they are engaged has been successfully accomplished. In cases of theft and non-restoration of the stolen property within a given time, the detectives or constables employed may be required to make it good.
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[192] Extended by the Chinese to certain cases of simple man slaughter.
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[193] The Cantonese believe the following to be the usual process:—“Young children are bought or stolen at a tender age and placed in a ch‘ing, or vase with a narrow neck, and having in this case a moveable bottom. In this receptacle the unfortunate little wretches are kept for years in a sitting posture, their heads outside, being all the while carefully tended and fed.... When the child has reached the age of twenty or over, he or she is taken away to some distant place and ‘discovered’ in the woods as a wild man or woman.”—China Mail, 15th May, 1878.
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[194] Meaning that it would become known to the Arbiter of life and death in the world below, who would punish him by shortening his appointed term of years. See [The Wei-ch‘i Devil], No. CXXXI.
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[195] One important preliminary consists in the exchange of the four pairs of characters which denote the year, month, day, and hour of the births of the contracting parties. It remains for a geomancer to determine whether these are in harmony or not; and a very simple expedient for backing out of a proposed alliance is to bribe him to declare that the nativities of the young couple could not be happily brought together.
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[196] The bridegroom invariably fetches the bride from her father’s house, conveying her to his home in a handsomely-gilt red sedan-chair, closed in on all sides, and accompanied by a band of music.
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[197] The Censorate is a body of fifty-six officials, whose duty it is to bring matters to the notice of the Emperor which might otherwise have escaped attention; to take exception to any acts, including those of His Majesty himself, calculated to interfere with the welfare of the people; and to impeach, as occasion may require, the high provincial authorities, whose position, but for this wholesome check, would be almost unassailable. Censors are popularly termed the “ears and eyes” of the monarch.
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