ernment can always
interfere directly. Appointments to the lucrative posts of customs,
_taot'ai_, at the treaty ports are usually made direct from Peking,
and the officer selected is neither necessarily nor usually from the
provincial staff. It would perhaps be safe to say that this
appointment has hitherto always been the result of a pecuniary
arrangement of greater or less magnitude.

Bribery and torture.

During the first five years (1906-1910) of the new method, by which
candidates for the civil service were required, in addition to Chinese
classics, to have a knowledge of western science, great efforts were
made in several provinces to train up a better class of public
official. The old system of administration had many theoretical
excellencies, and there had been notable instances of upright
administration, but the regulation which forbade a mandarin to hold
any office for more than three years made it the selfish interest of
every office-holder to get as much out of the people within his
jurisdiction as he possibly could in that time. This corruption in
high places had a thoroughly demoralizing effect. While among the
better commercial classes Chinese probity in business relations with
foreigners is proverbial, the people generally set little or no value
upon truth, and this has led to the use of torture in their courts of
justice; for it is argued that where the value of an oath is not
understood, some other means must be resorted to to extract evidence.

_Justice._--The _Chih-Hsien_ or district magistrate decides ordinary
police cases; he is also coroner and sheriff, he hears suits for
divorce and breach of promise, and is a court of first instance in all
civil cases; "the penalty for taking a case first to a higher court is
fifty blows with the bamboo on the naked thigh."[37] Appeal from the
_Hsien_ court lies to the _Fu_, or prefectural court, and thence cases
may be taken to the provincial judge, who signs death warrants, while
there are final courts of appeal at Peking. Civil cases are usually
settled by trade gilds in towns and by village elders, or by
arbitration in rural districts. Reference has been made to the use of
torture. Flogging is the only form of torture which has been allowed
under the Manchus. The obdurate witness is laid on his face, and the
executioner delivers his blows on the upper part of the thighs with
the