The time for the so-called Autumnal Aasizes or Tstiv Sheng being now near at hand at Peking, the officers of the Board of Punishments have been busy making up the list of condemned criminals that have been sent up to them for trial and sentence by the metropolitan and provincial ad: trations during the present year. Thi for the purpose of presenting the various cases to the notice of the Throne, at the same time asking it to appoint an Tmperial Commission to confirm the sentences that have been passed by that. Board, What la known then ae the Totie Shug is really what may be properly called an Iniperial Confiematory Commission, and not as has been frequently translated the "Autumnal es" which in the Kuglish—sense of the term means an entirely different thing, With that desire for the pensation of perfect justice which m every statute in China—leaving aside the question of application which sometime obtains amongst the interpreters of the law—the aim of the above-named Imperial Confirmatury Commission is to allow criminals who have been condemned bythe Board ut Punishments the chance of a last oppon! against what they may think an unjust sented Whatever may be said to the contrary, it lias at least a beneficial effect on the dispensers of the law in the huge rambling building called the Board of Punisbments. The, Imperial Commissioners appointed this year by the Throne consist of "Grand and an Assistant Grand Secretary, Their Excellencies Chang Chih-wan and Lin Shu, President and Vice-President of the and six others, high dignitaries of the various Boards. The mode of procedure om these occasions is for the Tuiperial Commissioners to proceed in a body to the waiting room or ante-chaming to the Palace, specially deinenibers of the Board of Punishments who have business to report to the Throne, and-take seats behind a row of tables placed on the right and left hand sides of the Chamber—the centre of the room being devoted to a drayon-bedizened tablet containing the name of the Emperor "of a myriad ages." The condemned criminals clothed in red with their bonds temporarily taken off, are then brought up
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.