11.] THE SONS OF THE EMPEROR. 223 event of any act on his part being deemed beneath the dignity of his family. The people of China are taught to regard the emperor as the representative of heaven, and the empress as the representative of mother earth. In this position she is supposed to exert an influence over nature, and to possess a transforming power. One of her principal duties is to see that, at stated seasons of the year, worship is duly and reverently paid to the tutelary deity of silkworms. It is also her duty carefully to examine the weaving of the silk stuffs which the ladies of the imperial harem weave and make into garments for certain state idols. The empress is supposed to be profoundly ignorant of all political matters. There are instances on record, however, of empresses of China having manifested the greatest knowledge of these subjects. The present empress-dowager-the mother of the late sovereign, Tung-chee-succeeded, through her curious inquiries into state affairs, in bringing to light a conspiracy of certain members of the cabinet council to depose and murder her son. The principal conspirators were decapitated, whilst others, not so deeply implicated, were sent into perpetual banishment. But besides the empress, the emperor has other wives. These are eight in number, and have the rank and title of queens. These royal ladies are divided into two classes, the first of which consists of three, and the second of five queens. In addition to the wives there are, of course, several concubines. The choice of an empress, and of queens, turns solely on the personal qualities or attractions of those selected, without any reference whatever to their connections or family reputation. They are selected in the following manner. The empressdowager with her ladies, or, in her absence, a royal lady who has been invested with authority for the purpose, holds what may not inaptly be termed a "drawing-room," to attend which Tartar ladies and the daughters of bannermen are summoned from various parts of the empire. The lady pronounced to be the belle of the assembly is chosen to be in due time raised to the dignity of empress. Those who are placed next in personal attractions are selected for the rank of queens. The daughters of bannermen of the seventh, eighth, and ninth ranks, appear before the empress-dowager, in order that a certain number of them may be appointed to fill the respective offices of "ladies' and women of the bedchamber. This ceremony is, I believe, observed once a year. Queens were chosen for the ancient kings of Persia in a similar manner-to use the words of the book of Esther, in which we find evidence of the practice—" out of the choice of virgins." The young ladies admitted into the imperial zenana are, as a rule, daughters of noblemen and gentlemen; but as personal beauty is one of the chief qualifications for the seraglio, the inmates of the palace are, in some instances, women who have been raised from the humbler walks of life. Indeed, a woman of the lower orders of society was, it is said, the mother of the Emperor Hien-fung. She was the keeper of a fruit stall, and being exceedingly fair and beautiful, she on one occasion attracted the attention of the chief minister of state, whilst he was passing in procession through the street in which she resided. Being greatly pleased with her beauty, he obtained for her a home under the imperial roof of Taou-kwang, where in due course she became the mother of the ill-fated sovereign, Hien-fung. I was residing in China when a wife was selected in this way for the late emperor, Tung-chee. The name of their new Empress was made known to the Chinese people by the Pekin Gazette of the 11th of March, 1872. The proclamation issued in the names of the two empresses dowager, set forth that a lady named A-lut'ê had been selected to become the kind companion of the emperor, the sharer of his joys, and the partaker of his sorrows. The Gazette further informed the people that she was the daughter of Ch'ung Chi, a junior officer in the Hanlin College. His rank, as evidenced by his buttons, corresponded to that of a prefect or ruler of a department. Ch'ung Chi is, as a matter of course, of Mongolian blood. He is also a bannerman of the plain blue banner. He is the son of one Saishanga, an officer of some notoriety in the early part of the previous reign, who lost the favour of his sovereign in 1853, owing to his inability to cope with the Taiping rebellion. In consequence of the defeats which he sustained at the hands of the rebels, he was degraded, and withdrew from public life. In 11.] THE EMPRESS AND QUEENS. 25 1861, his private mansion-house in Pekin was confiscated by the government, and converted into the Tsung-li Yamun. He is a man of great learning, having been Chuang-yüan, or first graduate (senior wrangler or senior classic), at the triennial examination for the doctor's degree in 1865. The mother of A-lut'ê is a daughter of the late Tuanhua, Prince of Cheng. This prince was the recognized leader of the anti-foreign party which, towards the close of the reign of Hien-fung, gave so much trouble to the representatives of foreign nations. This party, however, was in the month of November, 1861, most fortunately overthrown by the Prince of Kung, who was upheld by the empress-mother. The leaders of the defeated anti-foreign party were tried and decapitated, and as a mark of imperial favour Tuanhua was permitted to terminate his existence by suicide. In the same issue of the Pekin Gazette to which we have alluded was a second decree, appointing three other ladies to be members of his imperial majesty's harem. Of the ladies in question, the first is a daughter of a clerk in the board of punishments; the second is a daughter of a prefect; and the third the daughter of Saishanga, the grandfather of A-lut'ê. The ladies of the royal household are under the charge of eunuchs, who are called upon to discharge the usual duties of royal seraglios. In each of the provinces into which the empire is divided there is a most formidable array of officials, all of whom act directly or indirectly under their respective boards or tribunals. Thus in the province of Kwang-tung,1 which I venture to select to illustrate the working of the government in each province, there are the following civil mandarins :-viz., a governorgeneral, a governor, a treasurer, a sub-commissioner, a literary chancellor, a chief justice,—the last four being of equal ranksix tautais of equal rank, ten prefects of equal rank, and seventy-two district or county rulers of equal rank. Each of these officials has a council to assist him in the discharge of the duties of his office. Besides these officials, every town and village in the empire has its governing body, so that the number of officials in each province is very great. The various 1 Kwang-tung has an area computed at more than ninety-seven thousand square miles, and a population estimated at somewhere about nineteen millions. classes of officers are in regular subordination. Thus, the governing body of a village is subordinate to the ruler of the district or county in which it is situated. The district or county ruler is subject to the prefect of the department of which his district is a part. The prefect is, in turn, subordinate to the tautai; the tautai to the chief justice or criminal judge, and so on, step by step to the governor-general or viceroy. Each official stands in loco parentis to the subordinate immediately below him, while the mandarins are regarded as standing in a paternal relation to the people they rule. The principle pervades all conditions of society down to the humblest subjects of the realm, those who are in the higher walks of life acting the part of parents to those of an inferior grade, while over all is the all-embracing paternity of the emperor. Chinese officials of certain grades are not allowed to hold office in the provinces of which they are natives, nor are they, without imperial permission, allowed to contract marriages in the provinces in which they have been appointed to hold office. To preclude the possibility of their acquiring too much local influence in the districts, or prefectures, or provinces where they are serving, they are removed, in some instances triennially, and in others sexennially, to other posts of duty. All officers are supposed to be appointed by the emperor on the recommendation of the board of ceremonies, the members of this board being especially regarded as the advisers of his imperial majesty in the bestowal of political patronage. The candidates for office are, or, according to law, ought to be, men who have graduated at the great literary examinations. The members of the board of ceremonies, however, are not at all unwilling, for a consideration, to submit to the notice of his majesty for office the names of men whose literary rank has been bought rather than attained by study. The salaries attached to government offices are very small. This is a system which leads to most scandalous and irregular proceedings. Thus the mandarins of China, though drawing quarterly from the imperial exchequer the smallest possible amount of pay, are enabled, by the accumulated gains of fraud and avarice, to retire from office as men 11.] MANDARINS. 27 27 of wealth and substance. They are, and have been for a considerable time past, the very curse of the country, the palmerworm at the root of its prosperity. By their misrule they have plunged this fair land into that deplorable anarchy, confusion, and misery, for which it is now conspicuous amongst nations. The military mandarins of the province of Kwang-tung are also very numerous. Of this class the Tartar general is of course recognized as the head. The duties which devolve upon a governor-general, or governor of a province are very arduous. He is responsible to the emperor, who is responsible to the gods, for the general peace and prosperity of his province. It is his duty to take cognizance of all the officials, and to forward triennially to the board of civil appointments at Pekin the name of each officer under his administration, with a short report on his general behaviour. The information is furnished to the viceroy or governor by the immediate superior of each officer. Should the governor-general be accused of any offence, an imperial commission to investigate the charge is at once appointed. As I shall have occasion to point out more fully afterwards, there are nine marks of distinction by which the rank or position of officials of the Chinese Empire may be readily recognised. A member of the first class, or highest order of rank, wears on the apex of his cap a dark-red coral ball, or button, as it is more generally called. Members of the second class wear a lightred ball or button of the same size. The third class is distinguished by a ball of a light-blue, and the fourth by a ball of a dark-blue colour. An official of the fifth class is recognised by a ball of crystal, whilst a ball of mother-of-pearl is the distinguishing badge of the mandarin of the sixth class. Members of the seventh and eighth classes wear a golden ball, and of the ninth and last class, a silver ball. Each officer may be further distinguished by the decoration of a peacock's feather. This feather is attached to the base of the ball on the apex of his hat, and slopes downward. It is worn at the back. The first of the outer garments worn by an official is a long, loose robe of blue silk, richly embroidered with threads |