in the provinces for dealing with
foreign commercial questions, viz. the superintendencies of trade for
the northern and southern ports. The negotiations connected with the
Boxer outbreak proved so conclusively that the machinery to the
_Tsung-li Yamen_ was of too antiquated a nature to serve the new
requirements, that it was determined to abolish the _Yamen_ and to
substitute for it a board (_Pu_) to be styled the _Wai-wu Pu_, or
"board of foreign affairs."

2. Board of Civil Appointments.

3. Board of Home Affairs.

4. Board of Finance and Paymaster General's Department.

5. Board of Ceremonies.

6. Army Board or Ministry of War (instituted 1906).[34]

7. Board of Judicature.

8. Board of Agriculture, Works and Commerce (instituted 1903).

9. Board of dependencies.

10. Board of Education (instituted 1903).

11. Board of Communications (instituted 1906).

Each board has one president and two vice-presidents, with the
exception of the Wai-wu Pu, which has a comptroller-general and two
presidents, and the Boards of War and Education, each of which has a
comptroller-general in addition to the president. According to the
decree of 1906 no distinction, in filling up the various boards, is to
be made between Manchu and Chinese.

Besides the boards named there are other departments of state, some of
them not limited to any one branch of the public service. The more
important are those that follow:--

The Censorate (_Tu Ch'a Yuen_).--An institution peculiar to China. The
constitution provides a paid body of men whose duty it is to inform
the emperor of all facts affecting the welfare of the people and the
conduct of government, and in particular to keep an eye on the
malfeasance of his officers. These men are termed _Yue shih_ (imperial
recorder), generally translated censors. Their office has existed
since the 3rd century B.C. The body consists of two presidents, a
Chinese and a Manchu, 24 supervising censors attached to the
ministries at Peking, and 56 censors, divided into fifteen divisions,
each division taking a particular province or area, so as to embrace
the whole eighteen provinces, besides one metropolitan division. The
censors are privileged to animadvert on the conduct even of the
emperor himself; to censure the manner in which all other officials
perform or neglect their duties and to denounce them to the throne.
Th