phase of the folly and ignorance which hopelessly overshadow the vast
area of its Empire. For although the Chinese justly regard such
investigations as matters of paramount importance, and the office of
coroner devolves upon a high functionary--the district magistrate--yet
the backward state of science on the one hand, and the necessity the
ruling classes have been under of supplying this deficiency on the
other, have combined to produce at once the most deplorable and the
most laughable results. Two good-sized volumes of "Instructions to
Coroners," beautifully printed on white paper and altogether
handsomely got up, are published under the authority of the
Government, and copies of this book are to be found in the offices of
every magistrate throughout the Empire. It is carefully studied even
by the underlings who play only subordinate parts on such occasions,
and the coroner himself generally carries his private copy with him in
his sedan-chair to the very scene of the inquest. From this work the
following sketch has been compiled, for though it has been our fate to
be present at more than one of the lamentable exhibitions thus
dignified by the name of inquest, and to have had ocular demonstration
of the absurdities there perpetrated, it will be more satisfactory to
stick closely to the text of an officially-recognised book, the
translation of which helped to while away many a leisure hour.

The first chapter opens as follows:--

"There is nothing more sacred than human life: there is no
punishment greater than death. A murderer gives life for life: the
law shows no mercy. But to obviate any regrets which might be
occasioned by a wrong infliction of such punishment, the validity
of any confession and the sentence passed are made to depend on a
satisfactory examination of the wounds. If these are of a _bona
fide_ nature [i.e., not counterfeit], and the confession of the
accused tallies therewith, then life may be given for life, that
those who know the laws may fear them, that crime may become less
frequent among the people, and due weight be attached to the
sanctity of human existence. If an inquest is not properly
conducted, the wrong of the murdered man is not redressed, and new
wrongs are raised up amongst the living; other lives may be
sacrificed, and both sides roused to vengeance of which no man can
foresee the end."

On this it is only necessary to remark that the "validity" of