should be flayed alive, that their bodies should then be cast into a furnace, and their bones, gathered from the ashes and reduced to a powder, should be scattered to the winds. The order further directed that the head of the clan to which the two offenders belonged, should be put to death by strangulation; that the neighbours living on the right and left of the offenders should, for their silence and non-interference, each receive a flogging of eighty blows, and be sent into exile; that the head or representative of the graduates of the first degree (or B.A.), among whom the male offender ranked, should receive a flogging of eighty blows and be exiled to a place one thousand li distant from his home; that the granduncle of the male offender should be beheaded; that his uncle and his two elder brothers should be put to death by strangulation; that the prefect and the ruler of the district in which the offenders resided, should for a time be deprived of their rank; that on the face of the mother of the female offender four Chinese characters expressive of neglect of duty towards her daughter should be tattooed, and that she should be exiled to a province, the seventh in point of distance from that in which she was born; that the father of the female offender, a bachelor of arts, should not be allowed to take any higher literary degrees, that he should receive a flogging of eighty blows, and be exiled to a place three thousand li from that in which he was born ; that the mother of the male offender should be made to witness the flaying of her son, but be allowed to receive daily for her sustenance a measure of rice from the provincial treasurer; that the son of the offenders (a child) should be placed under the care of the district ruler, and receive another name; and, lastly, that the lands of the offender should for a time remain fallow. An account of this event was published by the provincial treasurer of Hupeh-the province in which the crime was committed-and ordered to be circulated throughout the empire.

Parricide is regarded as one of the most heinous offences of which a man can be found guilty, and is punished by a lingering death. Indeed, so great is the abhorrence in which this crime is held, that there is a law which expressly declares that not only shall the offender be subjected to a lingering death, but

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that the schoolmaster who instructed him in his youth shall be decapitated, and that the bones of his grandfathers shall be exhumed and scattered to the winds. It is also customary to close the ancestral hall of the clan to which the parricide belongs, that the spirits of his ancestors may be deprived of the homage of their posterity. The crime of parricide, however, is one of very rare occurrence in China. If the Chinese can lay claim to any virtue more than another, it is that of filial piety.

When parents die, the eldest son stands in loco parentis to his younger brothers, and much respect is paid to him by them. He rebukes them when they are wayward, and encourages them in well-doing. In a case in which a younger brother had struck his elder brother's wife, it was decided by the elders of the village to which the parties belonged, that the elder brother should be permitted to flog the younger brother. This was done before them, and to make the punishment more degrading, the implement used was a broomstick. The Chinese say that a person who has been flogged with a broomstick will be for ever unlucky.

In concluding this chapter, I may observe that it has always appeared to me that the children of Chinese in the upper walks of life are not, as a rule, robust. This circumstance is, I suppose, to be attributed in a great measure to the practice of polygamy ; for among the lower orders of society, whom poverty compels to be monogamists, the children are vigorous and active.

CHAPTER X.

SERVANTS AND SLAVES.

IN all Chinese families of respectability-to use the word in a limited sense there is a numerous array of domestic servants. The male servants in the family of an ordinary Chinese gentleman, include, as a rule, a porter, two or three waiting men or footmen, three or four sedan bearers, and others who are engaged in keeping the house in a state of general neatness and cleanliness. They are sometimes hired from month to month, and, in other instances, for a period of six months at wages ranging from three to four or five dollars a man per month. Board and lodging are of course included in the arrangement. In some cases, masters add to this clothing, and a sum of money for the purchase of tobacco and other minor "creature comforts." Testimonials as to past good conduct and general ability are, of course, required from such servants seeking an engagement. Cooks, and waiting servants in families of a lower grade in society, hire themselves for a period of twelve months at least, as do also agricultural labourers. For these servants there are what in England are termed statute hirings, which are held by the appointment of the local authorities in squares or other suitable places. At Canton the statute hirings take place from the first to the fifteenth day of the first month of the year, and are held in the quadrangle before the temple of Longevity The square is on such occasions densely crowded with both masters and servants, and is enlivened by peep-shows and exhibitions of various kinds on a small scale. On one side may