In the present number Mr. G. Jamieson continues his translations from the Lu-li, taking up the chapter on registration and taxation. Like every other Chinese regulation, the laws in these departments are minute in their apparent provision for every eventuality, and like every other Chinese regulation they are practically evaded or disregarded daily. The present article describes the position and duties of that most important of officers, the Pao-chang, Ti-pao or Head-borough, and the system of tithings and hundreds on which the administration of the law by government mainly rests, The Pao-chang is the recognised vehicle of communication between the ranks of the people and the officials; he is the peace officer as well as the tribune of the people; a terror to evildoers, and the spokesman on behalf of the oppressed. His position is almost identical with the hundred men in theTeutonie races, but while these developed from the tithings and hundred, apowerfuland effective system of self-government, the Chinese, with all the opportunity of so doing, have permitted them to remain simply a watch and ward system for mutual security, As Mr, Jamieson points out, there is in the development of the system a possibility of bridging over the vast chasm which exists between the Government and the people in China, and of alleviating on familiar lines the evils arising from an all-pervading but essentially corrupt bureaucracy. Mr. Jamieson is not quite correct in saying that there are no large estates in China leased out to tenant farmers. The Li family possess more than one such estate in Anhui acquired after the Tai-ping rebellion, and a few of the old families still their broad acres. There is not much haggling needed either to settle the tenants' rent from year to year, always paid in agricultural districts in kind. The writer in Kiangnan has frequently enquired about the condition of the crops and has always met a ready response, kiu fen hao, or shih fen hao, as the case may be. Sometimes an exceptionally good harvest becomes shu-erh fen hao ' twelve-tenths good," rentals being assessed on the amount of a fair average crop os
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.