The other day the Censor P'u Sung reported what were thought to be the unlawful proceedings of @ band of los. peradoés in the capital, in cons: quence of which we instructed the Commandant.of the Peking Gendarmerie to use every effort to arrest the accused men ant hand them overjto the Board of Punishments for trial and sentence according to law. Subsequently we received: another memorial from the Supervising Censor, Tuan Liang, guaranteeing the respretability of the acoused men and declaring that they were all harmless tradespeople, innocent of apy unlawful conduct, and not at all guilty of the charges made against them by the first named Censor. We therefore commanded the Board of Punishments to carefully investigate the case in an impartial manner for the furtherance of justice, and report the result to us for settlement. We are now in receipt of the said report which the said Board confirms the di claration of the Supervising Censor, Tuan Liang, and it is stated that the accused (Chang Ch'un-hsiang et al.) are really and traly tradesmen and merchants, and vot in any way connected with the desperadoes or bandits. The Board in question, however, accuse the first named Censor of denouncing people without, proof sufficient to justify the accusations made by him, while the second named Gen-or has also been reprehensible for having prematurely memorialised. on a matter sub judice and before sentence had been delivered. by the said Board, or the matter reported to the Throne in obedience to his Majesty's, fir-t decree. Furthermore, the. declaration of the second named Censor seemed to be suspiciously similar to the evidence, ete., given by the accused tradesmen. Hence it is clearly apparent that the first, named Censor had been guilty of taking advantage of his official. position to. get. revenge because of private pique, while it evident that the second named Censor, had been approached by. interested parties to champion the cause of the accused tradesmen, Both the Censors have, therefore, been reprehensible and the said Board now request that a penalty be ordered ss.a punishment and. warning to.thesa,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.