Chinese Police. There are more peddlers, more charlatans, more slippery adventurers in China than any where else. Hunger on compulsion, narrow lodgings on compulsion, a vile shed, a bare yard, frouzy rags, foul straw, the close com panionship of lazars and ruffians, all upon compulsion, break down Chihg's elastic spirit. Welcome death. And the mandarins are not unwilling to indulge the captive's preference for death over captivity. Long terms of in carceration do not suit the pocket of a coun try where so many must eat, and where so few are idle. When a prisoner does not avail himself of the right of appeal, he seldom languishes long. But before decapitating the kouan-kouen, it is necessary to catch them. The mandarins are not negligent on this score; they know how needful it is in so populous a country to enforce the law, and to suppress those who defy it. Besides this, they have a personal interest involved; for the outlaws cherish an especial grudge against the lettered aristocracy, and never let slip an opportunity of pillaging the prop erty of a magistrate, of intercepting a taxcollector, or holding a captured mandarin to ransom. They cannot often strike a blow at their cautious foes, but he who molests one graduate disturbs the whole learned cor poration, and must look to encounter the stings of the entire hive of alarmed pedants. The pheasant-plumed constabulary are quite capable of controlling mobs and arrest ing the small fry of rascaldom, but they are mere mousing-owls, quite unfit to hawk at such noble game as the kouan-kouen. For this purpose, either a band of braves must be hired at the expense of the provincial treasury, or the regular forces of the govern ment must be employed. The first plan is the most costly; the second is cheap, but en tails an amount of correspondence and cir cumlocution worthy of the most civilized nations. A general in command of a district
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must be memorialized, the War Office at Pekin requires to be consulted, the Imperial Chancery takes time for consideration, the Inspector of Crimes recapitulates, the Mili tary Board rejoins, and the Viceroy and Prefect report progress. Many large and beautiful letters are painted with careful brushes and perfumed ink, many clerks have to transcribe and abridge, before the imperial brief authorizes the civil officials to command the services of the Crown troops. At length enough red tape is spun, and the web of des tiny begins to close around the outlaws. A fourth-class mandarin usually commands the expedition. Although a civil magistrate, he goes forth armed and mounted; and under his orders are the two or more military man darins who lead the soldiers, and who are also on horseback, with sword and bow and quiver, their men being on foot. Curiously enough, in spite of the superior valor of the Tartar division of the army, the mandarins are said to select Chinese troops for these duties of police, fearing, possibly, that the fiery Mantchu warriors might be overrash in advancing on the ignoble foe. Cavalry are seldom in request, owing to the nature of the ground. Of course, in a country so full of men and so bare of trees, places of conceal ment are rare. There are rugged mountain ranges, but these have occupants of their own, as in India, and it is seldom that rob bers of the Chinese race own a hill-fort. When they do, they can generally afford to laugh at the mandarins, and unless the coun try people become their enemies, they cannot easily be starved or surprised. But most of the kouan-kouen have to take refuge among the huge swamps, natural fastnesses which abound in almost every province, where they erect their miniature stockade of bam boo, build wattled huts, and dig deep trenches around the little camp. Only the fowlers and fishermen ever penetrate these tangled
