The different boards are all charged with the superintendence of the affairs of the eighteen provinces into which the empire is divided. Fifteen of these provinces are grouped into eight vice-royalties, and the remaining three are administered by a governor. Each province is autonomous, or nearly so, and the supreme authorities, whether viceroys or governors, are practically independent so long as they act in accordance with the very minute regulations laid down for their guidance. The principal function of the Peking government is to see that these regulations are carried out, and in case they should not be to call the offending viceroy or governor to account. Below the governor-general or governor of a province, are the lieutenant-governor, commonly called the treasurer, the provincial judge, the salt-comptroller, and the grain-intendant. The provinces are further divided for the purposes of administration into prefectures, departments, and districts. Each has its officers, magistrates, and a whole host of petty underlings. The rank of the different officials in these provinces is indicated by a knob or button on the top of their caps. In the two highest it is made of red coral; in the third it is clear blue; in the fourth it is lapis lazuli; in the fifth of crystal; in the sixth of an opaque white stone; and in the three lowest it is yellow, of gold or gilt. They also wear insignia or badges embroidered on a square patch in the front or back of their robes, representing birds on the civilians and animals on the military officers.
Each viceroy raises his own army and navy, which he pays, or sometimes unfortunately does not pay, out of the revenues of the government. He levies his own taxes, and except in particular cases is the final court of appeal in all judicial matters within the limits of his rule. But in return for this latitude allowed him, he is held personally responsible for the good government of his territory. If by any chance serious disturbances break out and continue unsuppressed, he is called to account, as having by his misconduct contributed to them, and he in his turn looks to his subordinates to maintain order and execute justice within their jurisdiction. Of himself he has no power to remove or punish subordinate officials, but has to refer all complaints against them to Peking. The personal responsibility resting upon him of maintaining order makes him a severe critic on those who serve under him, and very frequently junior officials are impeached and punished at the instigation of their chief. Incapable and unworthy officials, constant opium smokers, those who misappropriate public money, and those who fail to arrest criminals, are those who meet swift punishment. On the whole the conduct of junior officials is carefully watched.
PALANQUIN OF A HIGH OFFICIAL.
As has been already said, the affairs of each province are administered by the viceroy, or governor, and his subordinates, and speaking generally their rule is as enlightened and as just as could be expected in an oriental country where public opinion finds only a very imperfect utterance. Official purity and justice must be treated as comparative terms in China. The constitution of the civil service renders it next to impossible that any office holder can be clean-handed. The salaries awarded are low, out of all proportion to the necessary expenses pertaining to the offices to which they are apportioned, and the consequence is that in some way or other the officials are compelled to make up the deficiency from the pockets of those subject to them. As a rule, mandarins seldom enter office with private fortunes, and the wealth therefore, which soothes the declining years of veteran officials, may be fairly assumed to be ill-gotten gain. There are laws against these exactions, and very often some magistrate is degraded or executed for levying illegal assessments. The immunity which some mandarins enjoy from the just consequences of their crimes, and the severity with which the law is vindicated in the cases of others for much lighter offenses, has a sinister aspect. But in a system of which bribery and corruption practically form a part, one need not expect to find purity in any direction. And it is not too much to say that the whole civil service is, judged by an American standard, corrupt to the core. The people however are lightly taxed and they readily submit to limited extortion so long as the rule of the mandarin is otherwise just and beneficent.
THE GOVERNOR OF A PROVINCE.
How rarely does a mandarin earn the respect and affection of the people is obvious from the great parade which is made on the departure from their posts of the very occasional officials who are fortunate enough to have done so. Archdeacon Gray relates that during his residence of a quarter of a century at Canton he only met one man who had entitled himself to the regret of the people at his departure. When the time came for this man to leave the city, the people rose in multitudes to do him honor and begged for him to return if he could. A somewhat similar scene occurred at Tien-tsin in 1861, on the departure of the most benevolent prefect that the city had ever seen. The people accompanied him beyond the gate on his road to Peking with every token of honor and finally begged from him his boots, which they carried back in triumph and hung up as a memento in the temple of the city god. Going to the opposite extreme, it sometimes happens that the people, goaded into rebellion by a sense of wrong, rise in arms against some particularly obnoxious mandarin and drive him from the district. But the Chinese are essentially unwarlike, and it must be some act of gross oppression to stir their blood to fever heat.
A potent means of protection against oppression is granted to the people by the appointment of imperial censors throughout the empire, whose duty it is to report to the throne all cases of misrule, injustice, or neglect on the part of the mandarins which come to their knowledge. The same tolerance which is shown by the people towards the shortcomings and ill deeds of the officials, is displayed by these men in the discharge of their duties. Only aggravated cases make them take their pens in hand, but when they do, it must be confessed that they show little mercy. Neither are they respectors of persons; their lash falls alike on all from the emperor on his throne to the police-runners in magisterial courts. Nor is their plain speaking more amazing than the candor with which their memorials affecting the characters of great and small alike are published in the Peking Gazette. The gravest charges, such as of peculation, neglect of duty, injustice, or incompetence, are brought against mandarins of all ranks and are openly published in the official paper.
