Ir is refreshing to read, in the Peking Gazette of the 30th March, the Imperial decree adjudging sentences of punishment open the various officials of the Chekeang province, concerned in the gross dereliction of justice which has caused an excitement altogether unusual among a, people so long-suffering as-the Chinese. Matters seem indeed, in this respect, to have reached. that worst point at which they must mend. Complaints of mal-administration have been so frequent and urgent, that the Central Government seems to have been at length stirred to make an example of a really heinous case. Censor after Censor has urged that no case wrong-doing is ever redressed at king. The appeal is referred back the high provincial authorities, who report in favour of the previous decision, and there the matter ends. And we repeat that it is refreshing to find: these remonstrances have at last impelled the Government to action. The Hangchow cause célébre, as we have called it all through for the sake of a distinctive title, involved so gross an injustice that the gentry and literati of the neigh: bourhood took the matter up with an energy and indignation altogether unusual, and, finding strong support in the Censorate, maintained their. remonstrance in spite of the continued insistance of the provincial officials. Three several times the case was gent down from Peking for rehearing; threa several times the original decision, of the local authorities was upheld: by the High Referees; but still the appellants would not give up; and at last compelled the interference of the Peking Government, who ordered the whole case to be retried before the Board of Punishments at the capital. The case was watched with the greatest interest in this and the neighbouring province,. and was freely commented on in the. columns of the Shunpao, which deserves, no small share of credit for throwing, light on the true circumstances:. It was freely said that these were well.' known at Peking, but that the con. sequences would be so serious to every official concerned, that it was question. able to the last whether even justice would be for once dealt out. Wo remarked, more than a year ago (17th February, 1876), when first' calli attention to the case, that degradation: of all concerned must inevitably follo from such a decision, and the decree' which we print in another column confirms the popular impression we. were: then echoing. The District Magistrate who first passed the sentence' com. plained of, is transported to the Amoor; his immediate superior, the Prefect of: Hangchow, is stripped of his official: rank for failing to enquire' into and) rectify the wrong of his subordinate the Prefect of Ningpo, the Magistrate. of Kiahing, and three other officials who! have been concerned in the subsequent! proceedings, are similarly dismissed and degraded. The Governor of the province is convicted not only of a similar failure to redress wrong, but of having falsely." reported that torture had not been., used to extract confession,—whereas we understand the accused still showed," on arrival at, Peking, marks of crael-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.