and 8, 0. & C. QAZETTE.—Per An-
Six Mouths, Taels 6.50. 3.50—all payable in advance, Credit price, is. 13.15 per Annum; Subscriptions will he considered as renewed unless notice to the contrary be given before the expiry of the current term. and from province to province; he is necessuriiy ignorant of all the circumstances and customs of his new dis and has to rely on the clerks in his office for information. The influence these can exercise, therefore, is immense, and their opportunities for making money are correspondingly great. Dependent upon them in great measure for carrying on the routine work and for guidance as to the local customs, the Official fears to control them, 'The only channels through which complaints or petitions can reach their chief, they are able to exact fees from every applicant to the Yamen, And the Mandariu's nominal pay is so small, and the clerks' nominal pay is so amall, that it is really almost absurd to legis. late on the subject without remedying these discrepancies. In no department is there more room for corruption than in the administration of justice. No man is more willing to bribe than one who seeks to persecute an enemy through the medium of the law; unless it be one who has fallen into the clutches of the law and seeks to escape from. them. In paragraphs which we reprint elsewhere, the Foochow Herald describes case where a servant hung bitiselé rather than incur the torture end squeezing" that he knew awaited him in the city prison, on a charge of which he was yet said to be wholly innocent and a second case of a kidnapper being starved to death in a public cage for stealing a child—which goes far to justify the first man's reckless resolve to escape at all cost from the, horrors which degrade a Chinese Court of justice.
But to come to the memorial which we spoke of at the outset, Not only do the Fohkien officials—in connivance no doubt with their subordinates—permit cases to remain unsettled, while both accused and witnesses languish in prison, but the official returns of prisoners are falsified to cover the imprisonment of scores who are detained without being named on the records! The Magistrate of Amoy was found to have 80 prisoners in gaol, though he reported only 6; the Mngistrate of Shih-ma reported his gaol empty, while it really contained Nor is this the worst joners are confined by the \gs without the knowledge of the clerks and secretaries, whilst these again commit persons to custody with out the knowledge of their official
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.