shall be reduced two degrees, and amount to 80 blows only; the punishment to which the antagonist is subjected, remaining in either case the same as before.' p. 326, 327.

The punthen for firking as mdividual of the imperial blood is lefs fevere than for striking an officer of the government. PerLons inflicting wounds are liable for their confequences, for twenty, thirty, or fifty days, according to the nature of the injury: If the fufferer die atter the legal period, the affilant is not refponfiole. A flave ftriking a free man, fuffers only one degree more feverely than for alful among · quals-and vice versa; though a matter may trike his flave with impuany, if it be done for correction, and do not cut. Str king parents is death in all cafes. Wife triking hufband is punifhed three degrees more feverely than for a commoon affault; if the maim him, with death;-if he die, with death by torture. If a father kill his child by exceffive chaftifement, a hundred blows. There is no warrant in the letter of the law for infanticide. If one kill another to revenge the flaughter of a parent, the punishment is only a hundred blows.

The authors of all anonymous accutations against others, fhall fuffer death, although the charge fhould prove true. Falle and malicious accufations fhall be punithed with a pain two degrees more fevere than the accufed would have undergone, if the charge had been true. This, again, is exemplified by the anxiety, of the legeflator, through a great variety of imaginary cafes. We fhall give merely the general rule of equation.

When any person accuses another of two or more offences, whereof the lesser only proves true; and when, in the case of a single offence having been charged by one person against another, the statement thereof is found to exceed the truth; upon either supposition, if the punishment of the falsely alleged, or falsely aggravat ed offence, had been actually inflicted in consequence of such false accusation, the difference (estimated according to the established mode of computation hereafter exemplified) between the falsely alleged and the actually committed offence, or between the falsely alleged greater, and the truly alleged lesser offence, shall be inflicted on the false accuser-but if punishment, conformably to the nature of the fals alleged, or falsely aggravated offence, shall not have actually been inflicted, having been prevented by a timely discovery of the falsehood of the accusation, the false accuser shall be permitted to redeem, according to an established scale, the whole of the punishment which would have been due to him in the former case, provided it does not exceed 100 blows; but if it should exceed 100 blows, the 100 blows shall be inflicted, and he shall be only permitted to redeem the excess. ' p. 366, 367.

There is a very long section on bribery, with a prodigious scale of punishments, as usual, according as the bribe is large or small, or taken for an innocent or a criminal object. The pains

range

range from 60 blows with the bamboo, to death;-that extreme punishment being inflicted for taking more than 80 ounces of silwer (under 30.) for an unlawful object, and 120 (or 60%.) for a lawful one. Agreeing to take a bribe has the same punishment as actually taking it ;-offering or giving it a much lighter one; and if asked or extorted by an officer of government, no punishment at all.

Forging an Imperial edict is death; or counterfeiting the copper coin-the only proper currency of the empire. There does not appear to be any precise regulation about the forgery of private writings.

Rape is punished with death;-adultery among private persons with 100 blows; but much more severely among persons high in office;-fornication with 70 blows;--other offences of a more detestable nature only with the same punishment.

A person accidentally setting fire to his house, shall receive 40 blows; and if the fire spread to the gate of an Imperial pa lace, shall be put to death. Wilfully setting fire to one's own house, 100 blows;-to any other house, public or private, death. -Very severe penalties for neglecting the reparation of roads, bridges and canals, and for damaging or encroaching on them.

Such are a few of the leading provisions of this Oriental code: and defective as it must no doubt appear, in comparison with our own more liberal and indulgent constitutions, we conceive, that even this hasty sketch of its contents will be thought sufficient to justify all that we have said of its excellence, in relation to other Asiatic systems. How far it is impartially enforced, or conscientiously obeyed, we have not, indeed, the means of knowing;and so slight is the connexion between good laws and national morality, that prohibitions often serve only to indicate the preva lence of crimes, and the denunciation of severe punishments to prove their impunity. Of one crime, indeed, and that the most heavily reprobated, perhaps, of any in this code, we know the Chinese to be almost universally guilty; and that is, the crime of corruption. At Canton, it is believed, our traders have never yet met with any officer of government inaccessible to a bribe; and where this system is universal, it is evident that the very foundations of justice and good government must be destroyed in every department of the state. Of the extent to which falsification may be carried, and of the impunity of which it may be assured by bribery, a notable instance is recorded in the detail published by Sir George Staunton, in the appendix, of the circumstances attending the trial and acquittal of an English seaman, for killing a Chinese in an affray. The native merchant who had become aswerable for the good conduct of the crew, finding it impos

sible to get the officers to deliver up the man, contrived, by bribes, to the amount, as was reported, of no less than 50,000l., not only to get a whole host of witnesses to swear to a detailed story directly contrary to the truth, but to prevail on the tribunals and chief magistrates, among whom the real state of the fact was notorious, to certify and report it to the supreme government at Pekin, and to pronounce a solemn sentence in conformity to that

statement.

Such, however, will always be the fate of A NATION WITHOUT HONOUR; and this is the grand and peculiar reproach of the sin-gular people we have been contemplating. That noble and capricious principle, which it is as difficult to define, as to refer in all cases to a sure foundation in reason or in morality, is, after all, the true safeguard of national and individual happiness and integrity, as well as of their dignity and greatness. It is found, too, in almost all conditions of society, and in every stage of its progress -among the savages of America and the bandits of Arabia, as well as among the gentlemen of London or Paris--among Turks, Heathens and Christians-among merchants and peasants-republicans and courtiers-men and children: It is found everywhere refining and exalting morality--aiding religion, or supplying its place-inspiring and humanizing bravery-fortifying integrity-overawing or tempering oppression-softening the humiliation of poverty, and taming the arrogance of success. A nation is strong and happy exactly in proportion to the spirit of honour which prevails in it :-and no nation, antient or modern, savage or civilized, seems to have been altogether destitute of it, but the Chinese. To what they are indebted for this degrading peculiarity, we shall not pretend to determine. The despotism of the government-the trading habits of the people-the long peace they have enjoyed-and their want of intercourse with other nations, may all have had their share. The fact, however, we take to be undoubted ;-and it both explains and justifies the chief deformities in the code we have now been considering. If such a code could be imposed by force upon an honourable and generous people, it would be the most base and cruel of all atrocities to impose it. But it is good enough for a race to whose habits it was originally adapted, and who have quietly submitted to it for two thousand years. When governments begin to think it a duty to exalt and improve the condition of their subjects, the Chinese government will have more to do than any other ;--but while the object is merely to keep their subjects in order, and to repress private outrages and injuries to individuals, they may boast of hav ing as effectual provisions for that purpose as any other people.

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