by an equal number of blows with the whip instead of the bamboo, and, in ordinary cases, with the Cangue instead of banishment.

The three capital punishments are, First, stangulation; Secondly, for greater crimes, decollation; Thirdly, for the greatest crimes, as treason, parricide, sacrilege, &c., that mode of execution called Ling-chy, "a disgraceful and lingering death," which Europeans have somewhat incorrectly styled cutting into ten thousand pieces. The heads of robbers and murderers are publicly exposed in a cage suspended on a pole.

Chinese prisons are very severe, and, as there is no Habeas corpus Act, the most frequent instruments of judicial injustice are prolonged imprisonments. Nothing tends more effectually to deter from crime than the prospect of incarceration in those miserable abodes, which the Chinese emphatically style Ty-yo, or hell, and the severity of which is increased by the confinement being solitary. Women in ordinary cases enjoy the fortunate exemption of being placed, as criminals, in

the custody of their nearest relations, who are answerable for them, and in this manner they escape the further contamination of vice in a prison. The legal mode of torture, in forcing evidence, is to squeeze the ankles or the fingers between three sticks, tied triangularly; the former being applied to male, and the latter to female prisoners. Oaths

are never required, nor even admitted, in judicial proceedings; but very severe punishments are attached to falsehood in evidence.

Ten privileged classes are enumerated in the introductory division of the code, who cannot be tried and punished without a special reference to the emperor. The grounds of exemption (which, as usual, are denied in treason) consist, generally, in relationship to the imperial line, or in high character and station. Throughout cases where the crime is less than capital, any person under fifteen years of age, or above seventy, is allowed to redeem himself from punishment by a fine. A species of king's evidence is permitted in cases of thieving and robbery, with a view to

the recovery of the lost goods: in fact, something more than mere pardon is offered, as the accomplice who informs is entitled to the reward attached to the discovery of the criminals. This, however, extends only to the first offence.

The law distinguishes, in most cases, between principals and accessaries before the fact, punishing the latter one degree less severely than the former; and in this respect it differs from our own system, by which accessaries before the fact are punished as principals; after the fact, merely as concealers of what they ought to have revealed. In treason, however, as usual, the Chinese law punishes both principals and accessaries, and their innocent relations, with a sweeping severity. Where the safety of the emperor, or the stability of the government, is not involved, milder and more benevolent traits are frequently discernible in this code. With a view, for instance, to promote kindred and domestic ties, it is provided that relatives and servants, living under the same roof, shall in ordinary cases be held innocent; though they conceal the offences of their fellow-inmates, or even assist in effecting their escape. This was probably enacted in conformity with that precept of Confucius :"The father may conceal the offences of his son, and the son those of his father-uprightness consists with this."-(Hea-Lun, ch. 13.) The desire entertained and professed by the Chinese Government, that its subjects should be generally acquainted with the laws of the empire, has given rise to something not unlike our benefit of clergy. It is enacted that all those private individuals who are found capable of explaining the nature, or comprehending the objects of the laws, shall receive pardon for all offences resulting from accident (and not malice), or imputable to them only in consequence of the guilt of others, provided it be the first offence and not implicated with any act of treason or rebellion. A considerable portion of the sixth division of the code is devoted to providing for justice in the administration of legal punishments, and establishing safeguards for the subject. Severe penalties are denounced against officers of Government for unjust imprisonment, delay of justice,

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cruelty, &c. A species of bail is allowed to minor offenders in case of sickness, and they are exempted, or released from imprisonment, on sufficient security being given for their return. Torture is forbidden to be exercised on persons above seventy, or under fifteen, as well as on those labouring under permanent disease. Women can never be imprisoned except for capital offences, or for adultery. Torture and death cannot be inflicted on a pregnant woman until one hundred days after her confinement, in consideration, we presume, of the infant.

The condition of slavery in China is broadly marked by the absence of rights and immunities pertaining to those who are subjects, without being slaves. The law regards slaves with less care, and affords less protection to them, than to their masters. Every offence is aggravated or diminished in its penalty, according as it is committed by a slave towards a freeman, or vice versû. For a slave to kill his master, is punished with lingering death, as petit treason; while the converse of the case is not even capital. We find the same distinctions existing in the early history of Europe, in respect to the comparative personal rights of freemen and slaves. But, besides domestic slavery, it seems that for some infractions of the laws a whole family is sometimes condemned to public servitude, as appears from Section CXL. of the penal code. Personal service, too, is frequently levied by the government as a species of taxation on the lowest class, or that which has nothing but its labour to contribute. The comparative uncertainty of this, notwithstanding sundry enactments against its abuse, is a great evil; and both our embassies had reason to regret that they were the innocent occasions of much oppression and ill-usage to the poor people who were pressed by the mandarins to track their boats.

Robbery, with the concerted use of offensive weapons, is punished with death, however small may be the amount taken; and, if a burglar be killed by him whose house he invades, it is deemed an act of justifiable homicide. An intimation conveyed to the local magistrate of Macao that the English were aware of this part of the law, and prepared

I

to take advantage of it, had the good effect of preventing night robberies, which until then had been frequent. Simple stealing is punished only with the bamboo and with exile, on a scale proportioned to the amount; and there is reason to believe that death is never inflicted, whatever may be the value of the thing stolen. Theft among near relations is punished with less severity than ordinary stealing; and Sir George Staunton explains this, by its being the violation of a right not perfectly exclusive, since the thief, according to the Chinese system of clubbing in families, being part owner of the thing stolen, infringes only that qualified interest which each individual has in his share of the family property. Consistently enough with this principle, we may add that the thief seems to be more severely punished in proportion as the relationship becomes more distant, as having a smaller share of the property, and therefore violating a more exclusive right. But then it must be remarked that the rule does not apply to servants stealing from their masters, a crime which in China is also punished less severely than ordinary theft. The case is quite different among us in England, and with apparent reason, on the principle of its being a violation of necessary confidence, in addition to the violation of property.

The Chinese law of homicide derives additional interest from the circumstance of British subjects having on several occasions become obnoxious to it at Canton, and from its forming a very important subject of consideration in the establishment of our novel relations with the local government at that place. With its characteristic love of order, and horror of tumults, the national code treats affrays with unusual severity. Killing in an affray, and killing with a regular weapon, without reference to any intent either expressed or implied, are punished with strangling. Killing by pure accident, that is, not in an affray, nor with a weapon, and where there was no previous knowledge of probable consequences, is redeemable by a fine of about 41. to the relations of the deceased.

With regard to affrays, it must however be observed, that a limit is allowed to the period

of reponsibility, in all cases where the homicide was evidently not preconcerted. When a person is wounded with only the hands, or a stick, twenty days constitute the term of responsibility, after which the death of the sufferer does not make the offence capital. With a sharp instrument, fire, or scalding water, the term is extended to thirty days. In case of gun-shot wounds, to forty days; of broken bones or very violent wounds, fifty days. As the translator of the Leulee observes, the judicious application of the knowledge of this particular law once contributed to extricate the Company's servants in China from very serious difficulties in the case of a native killed by a sailor. The situation of the English at Canton in respect to homicides will be particularly noticed in another place.

Fathers have virtually the power of life and death over their children, for even if they kill them designedly, they are subject to only the chastisement of the bamboo, and a year's banishment; if struck by them, to no punishment at all. The penalty of striking parents, or for cursing them, is death, as among the Hebrews. (Exod. xxi.) In practice it does not appear that this absolute power bestowed on fathers is productive of evil, the natural feeling being, upon the whole, a sufficient security against its abuse.

The law of China is so tenacious of order, and so anxious to prevent the chance of homicide from quarrels, that some punishment is attached to the mere act of striking another with the hand or foot;-not as a private, but as a public offence. Though of course this cannot, in the generality of cases, be acted upon, it may account partly for the common spectacle of two Chinese jumping about and vociferating their mutual reproaches for an incredible time, without coming to blows. This noisy gesticulation seems to answer the purpose of a moral safety-valve, and is certainly more harmless than actual hostilities, though perhaps more disagreeable to the neighbours, inasmuch as it lasts longer. The responsible elder of the village or district (divided always into tithings and hundreds) often interposes on these occasions, and restores quiet. The law also provides some punishment for oppro

brious language, on the ground of its having "a tendency to produce quarrels and affrays;" or, as assumed by the English law in the criminal prosecution for libel, tending to a breach of the King's peace.

That portion of the Chinese code which relates to fiscal or statistical matters, to the tenure of lands and to inheritance, will be noticed elsewhere: but we may mention the subject of debts in this place. A period is allowed by law, on the expiration of which the debtor becomes liable to the bamboo if his obligations are not discharged. A creditor sometimes quarters himself and his family on his debtor, and, provided that this is done without violence and tumult, the civil authority does not interfere. One of the insolvent Hong merchants had in this manner to entertain some some of his Chinese creditors, until the representations to the government of those Europeans who had claims against him occasioned his banishment into Tartary; it being a much greater offence to owe money to a foreigner than to a native. The true reason of this is, the anxiety of that cautious government to prevent the recurrence of the trouble which it has in former times experienced, from the embarrassing claims and demands of strangers, and no real sense of justice towards them.

The able critique on the code, which we have already quoted, proceeds to say, "When we turn from the ravings of the Zendavesta, or the Puranas, to the tone of sense and of business of this Chinese collection, we seem to be passing from darkness to light-from the drivellings of dotage to the exercise of an improved understanding: and redundant and minute as these laws are in many par ticulars, we scarcely know any European code that is at once so copious and so consistent, or that is nearly so free from intricacy, bigotry, and fiction. In everything relating to political freedom, or individual independence, it is, indeed, wofully defective; but for the repression of disorder, and the gentle coercion of a vast population, it appears to us to be, in general, equally mild and efficacious. The defects are of course inherent in all despotisms, under which the legislator is not embarrassed by those considerations which in free states render every new law a problem,

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involving the greatest quantity of good to the public at the least expense of liberty to the individual; and which in countries where there is more liberty than moral instruction, or where men are better acquainted with their rights than with their duties, must always render the business of government a difficult task.

It has been reasonably proposed by Sir George Staunton to estimate the Chinese legislation by its results, "to judge of the tree by its fruits, some of which (he observes) we shall find to be wholly inconsistent with the hypothesis of a very bad government, or a very vicious state of society." On this subject he quotes his colleague in the commission of the last British embassy, "whose extensive acquaintance with Persia and India rendered him a peculiarly competent judge of comparative merit in this case. He pronounces China superior to the other countries of Asia, both in the arts of government, and the general aspect of society: and adds, that the laws are more generally known, and more equally administered; that those examples of oppression, accompanied with infliction of barbarous punishment, which offend the eye and distress the feelings of the most hurried traveller in other Asiatic countries, are scarcely to be met with in China; that the proportion which the middling orders bear to the other classes of the community appeared considerable; that compared with Turkey, Persia, and parts of India, an impression was produced highly favourable to the comparative situation of the lower orders."

"These statements," adds Sir George, "proceeding from a writer whose general opinions are certainly not very favourable to the government or people of China, have the greater weight. I should be disposed to add my own testimony to the same facts, and in the same spirit. In the course of our journey through the Chinese empire, on the occasion of that embassy, I can recall to my recollection (the sea-port of Canton, of course excepted) but very few instances of beggary or abject misery among the lower classes, or

1 Mr. Ellis, ambassador to Persia, with whom the writer of this travelled through China, and always heard him express the same sentiments.

of splendid extravagance among the higher; and I conceived myself enabled to trace almost universally throughout China the unequivocal signs of an industrious, thriving, and contented people."

Chinese law, with all its faults, is comparative perfection when contrasted with that of Japan, as described by Kampfer. "I have often wondered," says he, " at the brief and laconic style of those tablets which are hung up on the roads to notify the emperor's pleasure. There is no reason given how it came about that such a law was made; no mention of the lawgiver's view and intention; nor any graduated penalty put upon the violation thereof. The bare transgression of the law is capital, without any regard to the degree or heinousness of the crime, or the favourable circumstances the offender's case may be attended with." Some such comparison, perhaps, suggested the complacent reflections of Tienkeeshe, a Chinese, who thus wrote:-"I felicitate myself that I was born in China! It constantly occurs to me, what if I had been born beyond the sea, in some remote part of the earth, where the cold freezes, or the heat scorches: where the people are clothed with the leaves of plants, eat wood, dwell in the wilderness, lie in holes of the earth; are far removed from the converting maxims of the ancient Kings, and are

ignorant of the domestic relations. Though born as one of the generation of men, I should not have been different from a beast. But how happily I have been born in China! I have a house to live in, have drink and food, and commodious furniture. I have clothing and caps, and infinite blessings. Truly the highest felicity is mine."1

The country cannot, upon the whole, be very ill-governed whose subjects write in this style. But it is a still more remarkable fact, that the following should be a popular maxim of the Chinese, and one frequently quoted by them:-"To violate THE LAW, is the same crime in the Emperor as in a subject." This plainly intimates, that there are certain sanctions which the people in general look upon as superior to the will of the Sovereign himself. These are contained in their sacred books, whose principle is literally, salus populi suprema lex; as we shall see when we come to consider them hereafter. However much this principle may at times be violated under the pressure of a foreign Tartar dominion, it nevertheless continues to be recognised, and must doubtless exercise more or less influence on the conduct of the Government.

1 Chinese Gleaner, vol. i. P. 190.