The administratice machinery of the Chinese is very perfect in its organization, and demands an attentive consideration for the right understanding of the people and gov ernment. In each of the 18 provinces is an imperial delegate or governor, who, besides being at the head of the civil jurisdiction, is commander-in-chief, and possesses the power of life and death for certain capital offenses. He is privileged to correspond with the cabinet-council and the emperor. Under the governor are the superintendent of provincial finances, the provincial criminal judge, and the provincial educational exam iner; each communicates with his especial board in Pekin. The governor is also assisted by many other judicial and administrative officials. The governmental organization of each province is complete in itself, but in a few instances two provinces—Kwang-tung and iiwang-se, for instance—form a viceroyalty, over which a governor-general, in addition to the governors, exercises authority. Every province is again subdivided into districts, departments, and circuits. The average number of districts in a province is eighty, and each of these is about.the sizz of an Englishcounty. A civil functionary, called sometimes the district-magistrate, presides over this division, and is assisted by several subordinate officers. A group of districts—six is the average number for the whole 18 provinces—forms a department, and is ruled by a prefect, who resides in the fu or departmental city. Three departments, on an average, constitute a circuit, of which an intendant (taoutae) has the charge.
The several grades of mandarians, or Chinese government officials (Chinese name, are distinguished chiefly by a di•erent-colored ball or button on the top of the cap. There arc twelve orders of nobility confined to the imperial house and clan, and also five ancient orders of nobility open to the civil and military servants of the state. The normal government of China is less a despotism than a morally supported autocracy, and it is principle paternal. What the father is to his family, that the governor, the prefect, and the magistrate are intended to be, each in his own sphere, to the people; whilst the emperor stands in the same relation to the myriad inhabitants of his vast dominions. In ordinary times, the Chinaman enjoys much practical freedom and can travel through the country without passport, or follow any calling he likes.
The Chinese executive system is based on those noteworthy competitive examinations, which are intended to sift out from the millions of educated Chinese the best and ablest for the public service. The first examination takes place every three years in the capital of each department, when the lowest degree—that of bachelor—is conferred on a certain number of candidates from each district. Triennial examinations are held in the provincial, capital, presided over by two examiners from Pekin, at which some times as many as 10,000 bachelors present themselves, and compete for the degree of licentiate. Some 1200 obtain it, and these may attend the triennial metropolitan examination at Pekin, when about 200 may hope for the coveted degree of doctor, which insures immediate preferment.
Mr. Meadows, the most philosophical, perhaps, of our writers on China, and from whose works the foregoing sketch of the administrative system of the country has been chiefly derived, has entered very fully into what may be termed the philosophy of Chinese government, which he sums up in the following doctrines, and believes them to be deducible from the classic literature of the country, and the true causes of the wonder ful duration of the Chinese empire. 1. That the nation must be governed by moral agency,
in preference to physical force. 2. That the services of the wisest and ablest men in the nation are indispensable to its good government. 3. That the people have the right to depose a sovereign who, either from active wickedness or vicious Indolence, gives cause to oppressive and tyrannical rule. And to these he adds an institution—the system of public-service competitive examinations. But, on the other hand, these examinations, by directing the attention of students solely to the ancient literature of the country, to the exclusion of the physical sciences and inductive philosophy, however efficient in pro ducing that wonderful homogeneity for which the inhabitants of the central kingdom are famous, stunt and stereotype the national mind, which, like the dwarfed tree the China man delights to raise in a flower-pot, or the feet of a Chinese girl, can never fully expand.
Education, as the high road to official employment, to rank, wealth, and influence, is eagerly sought by all classes. Literary proficiency commands everywhere respect and consideration, and primary instruction penetrates to the remotest villages. belf supporting day-schools are universal throughout the country, and the office of teacher is followed by a great number of the literati. Government provides state-examiners, but does not otherwise assist in the education of the people. The Chinese have a remarkable reverence for the written character. Waste printed paper is collected from house to house and burned, to preserve it from profanation.
Army.—According to the Pekin Gazette, China has a prodigious army, but in reality the greater part figures only on paper. Each province is provided with a military force varying from 8,000 to about 68,000 men. According to Mr. Meadows the average for each province is about 34,500 men, and 640 officers. The governor of a province is also commander-in-chief, and is assisted by a general-in-chief, as well as lieutenants and majors general. The Chinese and Tartar troops form two important divisions of the army. The Tartar garrisons are indeed the real strength of the :Mauldin emperor. That at Pekin is 150,000 strong; and 18 others, averaging each about 3,000 men, are dotted about the provinces, forming, with their wives and children, military colonies. These troops, which are armed with good two-edged swords, and serviceable matchlocks, or the national bow, have alone been able to stand against the victorious Tae-ping rebels, and turn them from the capital. According to the most recent statistics (see Die icirth schaftlichen Zustdnde ins &den and Osten Asiens, Stuttg. 1871), the army is composed of 678 companies of Mantchus of 100 men each, of 211 companies of Mongols, of 106,000 Chinese cavalry, and of 500,000 Chinese infantry, besides a large body of irregular militia—in all 8:58,000 men. The Tartar infantry soldier receives four taels a month, and the trooper four and a half. The marquis de Moges (see baron Gros' Embassy) thinks that "two regiments of chasseurs and two regiments of zouaves would suffice to conquer China." "There is not," lie says, "a corps in the empire that could stand fast under a bayonet charge." This, however, is no longer the case. The native troops In all the large cities of the empire are drilled after the European fashion, and armed with the Snider and other breech-loading rifles• and in the opinion of intelligent English residents, the next Chinese war will be a very different affair from anything that has preceded it.