guest until morning. At daybreak a second messenger arrived, who brought instructions for the Prefect to repair with his prisoner to the Taotai's yamen, and forthwith, as the business was urgent. When they reached the yamen, a servant came out to say that the Taotai would not receive the military man- darin, and ordered him to prepare for instant death. The un- happy man insisted on an interview, and with his men forced his way into the yamen, where he demanded an appeal to the Emperor. The Taotai informed him that the edict had been received from Peking, had him stripped of his official clothes, hurried off and put to death on the spot. In another such instance of summary vengeance a wealthy mandarin, who had aided the Government with loans of money, determined, as he saw no probability of repayment, to withhold an undue propor- tion of the local taxes. It is a very common course of proce- dure in the interest of the Imperial Government to wait until the official has amassed sufficient wealth by illegal exactions, then to trump up a case against him, squeeze his property and condemn him to death. Shortly after the mandarin had taken this step, an official was despatched by the Government to inquire into the matter. The district governor hereupon invited the defaulter to a quiet dinner to meet the governor-general's emissary, and during the course of a convivial evening the host and his friend between them so managed to outrage the feel- ings of the guest, that a quarrel finally ensued. Then the "yamen runners" were called in, the expostulating guest was cut down, and this was the new way in which an old state debt was paid. A large tract of land outside Tai-wan-fu is known as the exe- cution-ground, and this spot I visited in company with Dr. Maxwell. I tried to make a picture out of it, but there was nothing to lend grace to the scene; for the plain here is a perfectly
