European British subjects committed to it for trial, or the jurisdiction of the Court of Session for the Rangoon Town, and no reference has been made under the provisions of that section or of section 434 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, the Chief Court may, on its being certified by the Government Advocate that in his opinion the decision is erroneous or should be further considered, review the case or such part of it as may be necessary, and finally determine the question, and may thereupon alter the judgment, order or sentence passed by the judge, and pass such judgment, order or sentence as it thinks right.

FINALITY OF ORDERS OF CHIEF COURT AS RANGOON COURT OF
SESSION.

13. Notwithstanding anything in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, a judgment, order or sentence passed by a Judge of the Chief Court in exercise of the jurisdiction of the Chief Court as the Court of Session for the Rangoon Town shall not be subject to appeal to or confirmation by the Chief Court, or, save as provided by section 12, to revision thereby. APPEAL FROM SINGLE JUDGE OF CHIEF COURT EXERCISING ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDIction.

14. Except as otherwise provided by any enactment for the time being in force, an appeal from any decree or order made by a single Judge of the Chief Court

(a) in the exercise of its original jurisdiction as the principal Civil Court of original jurisdiction for the Rangoon Town, or

(b) in the exercise of its original jurisdiction with respect to insolvent debtors and their creditors, or

(c) in the exercise of its original jurisdiction in cases withdrawn from other Courts under section 25 of the Code of Civil Procedure,

or

(d) in the exercise of any other original jurisdiction of a civil nature to which the Chief Court may by rule extend this section, shall lie to a bench of the Chief Court consisting of two other Judges of the Chief Court.

SUPERINTENDENCE AND CONTROL OF SUBORDINATE COUurts.

18. The general superintendence and control over all other Civil Courts in Lower Burma shall be vested in, and all such Courts shall be subordinate to, the Chief Court.

GRADES OF CIVIL COUrts.

21. (1) Besides the Chief Court, the Courts of small causes established under the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, 1887, and the Courts estab-. lished under any other enactment for the time being in force, there shall be four grades of Civil Courts in Lower Burma, namely:

(a) the Divisional Court;

(b) the District Court;

(c) the Subdivisional Court; and
(d) the Township Court.

(2) Every Court mentioned in the list in subsection (1) shall be of a lower grade than the Court mentioned immediately above it, and shall be subordinate to all Courts above it in the said list.

SUPERINTENDENCE AND CONTROL.

22. Subject to the general superintendence and control of the Chief Court, the Divisional Court shall superintend and control all other Courts in the local area within its jurisdiction; and, subject as aforesaid and to the control of the Divisional Court, the District Court shall superintend and control all other Civil Courts in the local area within its jurisdiction.

RUSSIA'S SPHERE OF INFLUENCE, OR A THOUSAND YEARS OF MANCHURIA.

By E. H. PARKER.

Now that the Russians have practically taken the three provinces of Manchuria under their political control, it is of interest to consider the ethnology of the country from a historical point of view. From the time of Confucius up to the present day practically one race alone has inhabited the district enclosed by the Ussuri and Sungari Rivers to the north, and the Ever-White Mountains of Corea and watershed of the Liao River to the south. This race is that described by Marco Polo as the Ciorcia, by Persian authors as the Churché, and by the Chinese and Cathayans as Sushen, Lüchen, Juchen, Chulichen, Chushen, Nüchen, and Juchih; until, in our own day, we find the Manchus, on the authority of their best Emperor, K'ienlung, deriving their own name Manchu from the name of the district Chushen, where they first began to feel their own power. The Russian author Hyacinth thinks them to have been originally of one race with the Coreans, who certainly can be traced up as far north as the modern K‘aiyüan, the old Fu-yü, whence the ancestors of at least some of the Coreans gradually migrated south; but, if ever there was a close ethnological connection, all trace of it had disappeared before historical times, and the Manchu races never got far into that part of South Manchuria (or Shingking), west of the river Liao, until 900 years ago.

Of the early history of these tribes, whose home practically corresponded with the modern province of Kirin, it is not proposed to treat here; nor is it intended to deal more than casually with the present ruling race in possession of China. It will be sufficient for the purposes of this paper to state that, from B.C. 500 to A.D. 1000, enough is known from original Chinese history, and has been translated and published, to make it quite certain that this one race, gradually

advancing from utter barbarism to civilization, has an unbroken and continuous history, and has remained in one definite main place; whilst, of course, from the Manchu conquest, 250 years ago, down to A.D. 1900, there is no question of Manchu identity. But no clear and consecutive account has ever, to my knowledge, yet appeared of the important developments which took place between A.D. 1100 and 1650, and which had for ultimate results at about those respective dates the setting upon the Chinese throne of two powerful military dynasties as closely allied in origin at least as are the Low Germans and the Dutch; and it is to attempt such an account, making use of as few strange names as possible, that I now take up the pen.

From A.D. 900 to 1100 China, north of the Tientsin River valley, was politically in the powerful hands of a Tungusic race known to the Chinese as Kitan, and in nomadic habit much more Mongol than Manchu; hence, as the true Chinese never regained political possession of this North China region until 1368, we find the Kataia of Marco Polo spoken of by him as though it were inhabited by a race different from the closely kindred people of South China. In the same way we find the Russians, who as imperial body-guards were numerous in North China during the thirteenth century, only knew of the Chinese Empire as Kitai, which to this day is still their sole name for it, and was derived from the Mongol word Kitat, still the Russian for "Chinaman." Well, these Kitan or Cathayans had a considerable influence over the vast area occupied by the various Turko-Tibetan tribes to the north and west, as far as the 50th parallel and the 100th meridian, and also upon the purely Chinese Empire to their south, neither of which regions, however, concerns our present purpose. Corea also recognised their suzerainty; and even Persia, Khoten, and the Caliphs of Baghdad sent one or two missions apiece. The centre of Cathayan power is easily understood by taking a glance at any good map. It was simply the Upper Liao River, or Shira Muren.

Valley, westwards from K'ai-yüan, including the valleys of all such tributaries as the Loha, Inkini, Kara Muren, etc., and as much south of the main stream as extends to the Great Wall. Later, it embraced the Peking plain south of the Wall, with as much land north of it as reaches to the rivers Kalka, Lower Nun, and Toro, and even to Hurun Pir. All their belongings west and south of this limited area were either semi-independent vassal states, or temporary encroachments upon Turkish, Tibetan, or Chinese earlier rights. One of the least vassal of these tribes is in Cathayan history actually styled Mung-ku or Mongol, and even some centuries before that the Mung-u of the Kerulon are spoken of in the T'ang History. The Cathayans had to their north and east the various Churché or Manchu tribes as above described, lying between themselves and Corea; and also some unidentified tribes akin to themselves, but not in close political union. The southern or more civilized half of the Blackwaters, Churchés, or Manchus, had for two centuries past (700 to 900)-taking advantage of Corean disintegration-governed a very extensive semiindependent kingdom, called Bohai, meaning “Sea of Liaotung," and roughly corresponding to the southern half of Kirin (Central Manchuria) as far west as K'ai-yüan and the Sungari, and the northern half of Shingking (Southern Manchuria) as far west as K'ai-yüan and the Liao River; thence eastwards to the Pacific; but the Cathayans, after becoming a great power, soon conquered this kingdom, and reduced it to the status of a subordinate viceroyalty. However, the inhabitants, having been ruled for two centuries by a dynasty of Corean-Chinese adventurers, had already become almost like Chinese. It is here that our present history begins. The northern and illiterate branch of the Manchus occupied the valleys of the Hurka, Altchuk, Larin, and Sungari, all which rivers were then known by almost exactly the same names as now. In fact, the Hurka is mentioned in Bohai history too, and gave its name to their later upper capital," the modern Ninguta,

THIRD SERIES. VOL. IX.

T