Mongolia comprises 24 aimak or tribes, arranged under six chulkan or corps; the tribes are divided into standards of about 2000 families each; and each tribe comprises from one to six or seven standards. Outer Mongolia consists of four loo or provinces; the number of standards included in which is eighty-seven. In the country around the Kokonor are various tribes similarly divided into standards; the territory which they occupy forms one province under the government of a tseängkeun, and attached to the province of Kansuh. Of Ouliasoutai, the fourth division of Mongolia, lying on the west of the Kalkas, the population is scattered, and the government is therefore entirely military; the only recognizable division of the country is into the two provinces Kobdo and Tangnoo Oulianghai. Both tribes are entirely composed of mountain nomads, and are under a tseängkeun, at the head of an army of observation on the Russian frontier. Great care is taken with all the Mongol tribes to prevent any of them encroach. ing on the territory of another; but within their own territories, they seldom rest long in one place. Ele forms one government, comprising two provinces, Soungaria and Turkestan. At the eastern extremity of each province are some districts, formerly Mongolian, which have received the Chinese form of municipal government, and been incorporated in the province of Kansuh; but a concurrent military jurisdiction, subordinate to the head government at Ele, is also exercised therein. In the rest of the two provinces, the government is entirely military; at the head of it is a tseängkeun residing at Ele; and subordinate to him are other military officers, and also civil residents with military authority. Their residences are called ching; the principal ching or cities, have surrounding cantons or districts, sometimes including several ching. There are three cantons in the northern province of Soungaria; and eight in the southern province of Turkestan. Tibet is divided into two provinces; the eastern province is called Tseën Tsang, Anterior Tibet; and the western How Tsang, Ulterior 'Tibet. Each of these provinces was formerly subdivided into two parts; but they are now divided into cantons, Anterior Tibet containing eight, and Ulterior Tibet, seven cantons. They are under the government of two lamas whose measures are subject to the approval of two Chinese ministers. Little beyond this general description of the country is at present known. We have thus roughly traced the several parts of this vast empire; in the system of political arrangement there are doubtless many things to admire; the machinery is good, but an exposure of the practical operation of the government for which this machinery has been arranged would display multiplied and glaring faults. It is, however, foreign to our present subject to enter on a consideration of these faults, and we must defer withdrawing the veil from them until a future period. ART. II. Notices of vaern China: duties and career of the great officers of state; Totsin, Sung, Hengăn, Na Yewching, Changling, Le Heungpun, &c. THE duties of the officers of government, as indicated in the penal code, are so minute and often so contradictory, as to make it almost impossible to fulfill them strictly; we find accordingly, that few or none have ascended the slippery heights of promotion without frequent relapses. Degradation, when to a step or two lower only, and temporary, carries with it of course, no moral taint in a country where the punishment awarded for bribery is graduated according to the amount of bribe received,* without any reference to moral violation; where the bamboo is the standard punishment as well for error in judgment or remissness, as for crime, only commuted to a fine in honor of official rank; where, as a distinction in favor of the imperial race, the bamboo is softened to the whip, and banishment mitigated to the pillory. Our materials furnish few cases, as might be expected, of great enormity amongst the highest class of officers, to which the inquiry is at present limited. One case will suffice to show that they may continue to oppress for a long time before their misrule attracts the emperor's notice. Chang, one of the conductors of lord Amherst's embassy was banished to Tartary about the year 1818,|| probably for incapacity and bad government in the situation which he held of judge of Shantung,§ which we are told is the second judgeship in importance in the empire. His successor shared the same fate in 1820, charged with suppressing upwards of 1000 cases in his court; with having imprisoned and implicated in prosecutions, upwards of 1300 innocent people; and finally with having employed a convicted criminal with forty people under him, in the police, who distressed the guiltless by extortion and other injustice. Several instances will be mentioned hereafter of punishment of officers of the highest rank for occasioning or failing to put down insurrections; and a long catalogue of atrocities will be recorded of the lower officers and police, when they are noticed more fully. A great amount of malversation must necessarily be found in the lower departments of the government, and in this, as in all countries, especially in Asia, the weaker are often, no doubt, made to suffer for the misdemeanors of their superiors; but it is peculiar to China perhaps to acknowledge the latter principle, and incorporate it into their code. "In all cases of officers of government," according to section 28, "associated in one department or tribunal, and committing offenses against the laws as a public body, by false or erroneous decisions and investigations, * Staunton's Penal Code, sec. 344. + Penal Code, sec. 7. Ind. Gleaner. April, 1820. p. 300. † Penal Code, sec. 8. Ind. Gleaner, Oct. 1818, p. 182. the clerk of the department or tribunal shall be punished as the principal offender; the punishment of the several deputies or executive officers, shall be less by one degree, that of the assessors less by another degree, and that of the presiding magistrate less by a third degree." We find the same principle again in sections 52 and 419. The foregoing principle is seemingly incompatible with section 40 which declares, "all officers of government are considered by law to be responsible superintendents of such charges and departments of affairs and public justice as may be placed under their authority and control," which is nearly rendered impracticable again by the 48th section, which takes from the superintending official the power of nominating his juniors for whom he is to be responsible. These contradictory precepts render it easy to select any one member of a tribunal as may be safest and most suitable with the prevailing interests, whenever it is necessary to make an example as a check upon malversation. * The above principle is stretched to its utmost bearings, as will be frequently shown, but nowhere more than in the constitution of the security merchants and linguists, who act as police over the foreigners in Canton, and who are daily made responsible not only for the negligences or connivances of their superiors, but also for occurrences which they could not possibly foresee or control. It is to be remarked too with respect to the foreigners, that in the public edicts respecting them, they are rarely or never threatened with the penalty of the law, and never made actually amenable for smuggling or other ïnfractions; but always some one or other of the governmental officers. "I have omitted," says Mr. Lindsay, in the report of his voyage, "to mention that on the morning of the 10th, we heard that official orders had been received from the tsungtuh (governor of Fuhkeen), announcing the degradation and dismissal of Chin tajin, vice-admiral of Minngan, and two other naval officers on account of the entrance of the Lord Amherst; and that a successor had been appointed to Chin in the person of Lin talaouyay, who had filled the inferior office of tsantseäng at Amoy, and was one of the officers assembled to give us audience there. This circumstance in itself is very expressive, and it is difficult to feel much respect for a government which, seeing itself powerless to enforce its orders on a small merchant vessel, feels itself compelled to throw the blame of its own weakness on, and endeavor to support its credit with the public by the punishment of, its subordinate officers." Whilst the inferior classes of officers are saddled with the blame of most of the real abuses of the empire, and often too with the penalty, the higher do not entirely escape. They, on the contrary, are harassed with trifling and unimportant complaints and penalties, whilst their real malversations, unless very flagrant, are not exhibited to the public. The prime ministers stand in China, as in all despotic governments. on a dangerous pinnacle, which is based Lindsay's Report, p. 42. parliamentary edition. upon the caprice and the life of the prince. On the emperor Keäking's accession to the throne, he condemned his father's prime minister, Hokwăn, to death,* and the edict which contains the sentence cites as precedent similar condemnation of premiers by three of his ancestors out of the four within the present dynasty. The present emperor was more clement or more fortunate in the minister bequeathed by his father; for Totsin, who was prime minister in the year of lord Amherst's embassy (1816), held that office until 1832. This is in itself strong presumptive evidence of his merit, which is nothing weakened perhaps by the circumstance that he seldom figures in our extracts from the Peking gazettes. Once only he is ordered to withdraw from court (in 1829)† to await the result of an inquiry into the conduct of one of his servants: neither the offense nor the result of the inquiry is stated. In 1830, he had ten days leave of absence accorded,‡ probably on account of his health; and a little later,|| the emperor dispenses with his attendance on days of mere formal audience, on account of his age, which exceeded 70. A little later,§ Tõtsin is found to be one of the select party of 16 whom his majesty banqueted, and occupying the seat of honor, that is the east side; while Changling, the present premier, was on the right, and Sung tajin held a third seat. Nothing more is heard of him until 1832, when two or three memorials from him appear in the gazettes, requesting permission to retire from office. The emperor put him off at first, by allowing short leave of absence, but finding that his health did not improve, he was permitted to retire with the title and pay of minister. He was then 75 years of age, and had served under three emperors, having risen step by step from the situation of clerk in one of the offices at Peking. The career of some of the great officers of China is both amusing and instructive, and none more so than that of Sung tajin, who has been best known by name to Europeans since the embassy of lord Macartney, to whom he acted both as a guide and a friend.** Sung is stated to have been prime minister in 1824 on the authority of a letter from Kiachta; but it seems doubtful if he ever altogether superseded Tõtsin. He is however spoken of as prime minister by the emperor Keäking himself, in the year 1817, as having attributed the drought which prevailed then at Peking to the monarch's wish to visit Shingking in Mantchouria. To utter such language," says the emperor,‡‡ "before the thing * Penal Code, appendix, No. viii.; Chinese Repository, vol, 3, p. 241. + Canton Register, September 2d, 1829. Canton Register, March 17th, 1830. Canton Register, April 15th, 1830. Canton Register, May 15th, 1830. ¶ Canton Register, March 17th, 1832. ** Lord Macartney speaks of him as a young man of high quality, who had just before been employed on the Russian frontier. "He possesses," adds his lordship, "an elevated mind, and during the whole time of our connection with him, has, on all occasions, conducted himself towards us in the most friendly and gentlemanlike manner. This behavior is agreeable to his natural character." Private Journal in Barrow's Life of Macartney, 1st ed. p. 345. tt Journal Asiatique. 1826, page 59. Indochinese Gleaner. Feb 1818. p. 49. spoken of takes place, and thereby agitate the minds of all, is indeed a great breach of the duties of prime minister." Consequently Sung was deprived of his situation of minister of state and other appointments and reduced to wear a button of the sixth rank, and sent to fill the office of tootung or adjutant-general to the eight standards at Chahaurh in Mongolia. "Let his name be retained in the books," adds the edict," and if for eight years he commit no error, let him be eligible for his former situation," We find him addressing the emperor thence shortly afterwards on occasion of an attack made by a party of lama priests on a trading wagon, which they plundered, and killed one of the people. Sung's report was in the Mantchou language with a commentary in Chinese: the latter the emperor forbids for the future. He appears to have had a strong party at court all the while, for in the following year three censors made use of the same weapon with which the minister attacked the imperial superstition, and attributed, as had been already alluded to, a hurricane to the disgrace of the premier. The Mathematical Board hinted too at the same conclusion. It is difficult to understand the object of the minister in preventing the emperor's visit to Tartary, whilst he remained at Peking. The emperor could not however screw up his courage to the journey, without putting forth a preparatory edict which ends by admitting,* "that Sung was fond of performing petty charities and acts of kindness, but that he did not understand true greatness." As to his adherents, his majesty says: "let them do what they please, I, the emperor, will not trouble myself to think about it." One of these adherents, a Tartar nobleman, who had been involved in the premier's disgrace,† was allowed to return into the presence of the emperor, when it was expected that he would acknowledge his offense and his gratitude for the leniency shown him. Instead of this, he threw himself prostrate before the emperor, burst into tears and protested his innocence in terms which reflected upon the emperor himself. He was accordingly disgraced again, and sent back to Tartary. Sung was promoted nevertheless to be captain-general in Mantchouria, but subjected again to imperial censure for his prevailing sin, clemency beyond the laws." He had tried to obtain restitution of rank for some officers who had been dismissed the service. His benevolence, adds our authority, is said to be so great that beggars cling to his chair in the streets to supplicate alms, and the Tartars worship him. The emperor went to Tartary to visit his father's tomb: it is not said what effect this had upon the elements at Peking; but it appears that he met with much delay and disappointment in consequence of the heavy rains in Tartary. He carried old Sung back with him probably, for we find him employed again in Peking in various important duties in April, 1819, and receiving moreover a royal present of ten taels of ginseng.|| The emperor shortly finds himself again in trammels, and thwarted |