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THE MANDAEINS. 828
conic in shape, or with upturned brim. Their titles are not transmitted to their
offspring, and even when ennobled, the honour is retrospective only, affecting not
their posterity, but their ancestry. The civil mandarin is even forbidden to take
his father with him to his government, lest, in case they differed in opinion, the
son might be placed between two equally imperious duties, obedience and
filial piety. Hereditary titles are reserved for the descendants of Confucius and
the emperors, but even the latter are subjected to the regular examinations for
public offices. The only privileges of the members of the imperial family consist
in a modest pension, the right to wear a red or yellow girdle or a peacock's feather
in their cap, and to be carried by a team of eight or twelve palanquin bearers.
In the administration they count for nothing, and special mandarins are appointed
to keep them in due subjection, and even to apply the rod in case of insubordination.
Like the Emperor, every mandarin is at once " father and mother " in his
respective jurisdiction. They were formerly spoken of as " clouds," because they
were supposed to " shed the healing showers on the thirsty soil." All local
functions are centred in their hands. They levy the taxes, build roads, organize
the militia, and are, in fact, little potentates in their several districts, but with the
threat of deposition always hanging over them. As the father is responsible
for the faults of his children, the mandarin may be denounced for all the crimes
murders, and outbreaks that may take place in his jurisdiction. Hence, although
bound to make a yearly report of his errors in a special memoir addressed to the
Emperor, he generally omits to mention the disorders that have occurred in the
district. Formerly the mandarins were frequently condemned to capital punish-
ment, but now the usual sentence is banishment to Manchuria, Zungaria,
Formosa, or other outlying regions. Recently the foreign powers have unwittingly
aimed a great blow at their power, and tended in no small degree to promote the
political centralization of the empire, by refusing to treat directly with the
provincial governors and viceroys, and by always addressing themselves to the
court of Peking.
One of the most serious defects in the existing administrative system is the
totally inadequate pay given to the lower officers, and the low rate at which
the salaries of the higher mandarins are fixed low especially when the wealth ai.d
extent of the territories over which they rule are taken into consideration. The
mandarins are, in consequence, obliged to gain their incomes by means of extortion,
bribery, and illegal fees levied by their underlings. These retain a certain portion
themselves, but the greater part goes in different ways to the purses of the
mandarins.
iVrlia])* die total amount of revenue, public and secret, derived by the actual
governing power in China is not larger in proportion than that obtained in England.
The great evil is that by far the larger part of it is levied in a very unequal
manner, that at once demoralises the nation and damps its energies.
The people, knowing that the mandarins cannot possibly live on their salaries,
excuse and aeqiiiesee in the imposition of certain generally understood irregular fees,
which every one who applies to the courts must pay. On the other hand, the