port of sick, infirm or aged persons, and to persons over seventy or not more than fifteen years of age.

Timely confession; the restoration of stolen goods, or assistance in bringing accomplices to justice, always secure to the offender a mitigation of punishment and, in many cases, a full pardon.

Children under seven years of age and accused persons over ninety are deemed incapable of committing any crimes but those of rebellion and high treason.

The crimes most severely punished are those known as the "Ten Abominations," viz. rebellion, disloyalty, desertion, parricide, massacre, sacrilege, impiety, discord in families, insubordination, and incest. These crimes, when the offense is capital, are excepted from the benefit of privilege or any act of general pardon " in order that people may learn to dread and avoid the same."

High treason is defined by the Code as "an unspeakable outrage and attempt to violate the divine order of things on earth." It is committed by any attempt to subvert the established government; to destroy or injure the person of the sovereign, the palace in which he resides, the temple in which his family is worshipped, or the tombs in which the remains of his ancestors are deposited. The punishment inflicted on traitors is extremely barbarous. All persons convicted of having been principals or accessories to any act of treason suffer death by a slow and painful execution. Moreover, all male relations in the first degree at or above the age of sixteen, without any regard to place of residence, are indiscriminately beheaded. The remaining male children, if proved to be totally innocent of and unacquainted with the commission of the offense, are suffered to live, but rendered eunuchs that they may be employed for the public service in the exterior buildings of the palace. Female relations in the first degree are distributed as slaves to the great

officers of the state, and the property of every description belonging to such treasonable offenders is confiscated for the use of the government.

Parricide is considered only one degree less culpable than treason, and is punished as a crime of the deepest dye; such a violation of the ties of nature being held to be evidence of the most unprincipled depravity. Any person convicted of a design to kill his or her parents or ancestors, whether a blow be struck or not, is liable to suffer death by being beheaded. If the murder is actually committed, all the parties concerned therein, whether principals or accessories, if related to the deceased as above mentioned, suffer death in a slow and painful manner, being cut into a thousand pieces. If the criminal dies in prison an execution similar in mode takes place on his body.

Murder, in all cases, is punished by decapitation. When committed with the design of afterwards mangling the body and distributing the limbs of the deceased for magical purposes, not only is the offender executed, but all the inmates of his house, although innocent of the crime, are perpetually banished. Persons giving information by which such offenders are brought to justice receive a reward of twenty ounces of silver from the government.

All persons rearing venomous animals, or preparing drugs of a poisonous nature, for the purpose of murder, are beheaded; their property confiscated, and family banished, even if no person is actually killed by such

means.

The use of abusive language is very sternly repressed, especially if the offended person happens to be the husband or ancestor of the offender. The Code says: "Opprobrious and insulting language, having naturally a tendency to produce quarrels and affrays, this book of laws expressly provides for its prevention and punishment."

Robbery and theft are severely dealt with. If the individual plundered or stolen from

is likewise wounded, the principal offender is beheaded, and if any organized band of robbers, in an attempt to secure booty, burn a house or violate a female, the criminals are beheaded immediately after conviction, and their heads, as soon as struck off, are fixed on pikes and exhibited as a public spectacle.

If accessories to a robbery or theft, when it is their first offense, surrender themselves. before information has been given to any magistrate, they are pardoned.

In passing sentence on persons guilty of theft the magistrate always takes into consideration the rank of the person stolen from and the amount taken. In ordinary cases the guilty persons are branded in the lower part of the left arm with the words "Tsie tao," signifying "thief," as a warning to others and a reproach to themselves, in addition to receiving corporal punishment, and in some cases they are exiled perpetually.

As to what constitutes a theft or robbery, and what an attempt only, the rule is that an open and violent taking constitutes robbery, and a private and concealed taking a theft. An attempt is to be distinguished from the accomplishment of the criminal purpose in the following manner: In cases of strings of copper money, utensils and other easily movable articles of that description, possession must not only be obtained, but they must have been moved out of the place or apartment in which they were found; otherwise a theft or robbery of such articles is only to be considered as having been attempted. In case of pearls or other precious stones, and other small and valuable articles, it is sufficient that they are found on the person of the offender. On the contrary, in the case of large, heavy articles of wood or stone which the unassisted strength of man is not adequate to remove to any distance, they must not only have been displaced, but actually lifted upon the cart, or upon the animal provided

for their removal. In respect to horses, asses, mules and cows, they must have been taken out of the stable, and some evidence must be adduced of exertion on the part of the offender to make himself master of them. Thus, if one horse is stolen and the rest follow, the thief is not responsible for the theft of more than one horse; but if he steals a mare, and the foal follows, his offense is to be deemed a theft of both the mare and the foal. In general, when there are circumstances to trace, and witnesses to give evidence of the overt act, but not of any actual possession of the goods, the offense is punished as an attempt only. When actual possession is proved the theft or robbery is considered to have been completely carried into effect, and punished accordingly.

Great care is taken to ensure the health and comfort of the emperor, and if any physician inadvertently prepares and mixes the medicines destined for the use of His Imperial Majesty in any manner that is not sanctioned by established usage, or does not accompany them with a proper description and direction, he is liable to a penalty of one hundred blows.

The cook who prepares the imperial repast must also be exceedingly careful, for if he introduces any prohibited ingredients into the dishes by inadvertence; uses articles of food not clean and skillfully selected, or neglects to taste their quality when cooked, punishment is administered.

Some of the provisions of the Chinese Code are of great merit, particularly the one guarding against monopolies of all kinds, which provides that if artful speculators, using undue influence in the market, oblige others to allow them an exorbitant profit, and by unjust contrivances raise the price of their goods far beyond their real value, they shall be severely punished.

There is also a humane section with regard to the care of the aged, infirm or destitute. Every magistrate is bound to maintain and protect all such people in his

tageous and disciplinary in its char

acter. Not less than the body, the mind requires cultivation and discipline. If it be conceded that the study of Latin and Greek is no longer advisable because of its lack of practical utility, still it cannot be denied that the mental exercise inseparable from the study of these languages is most salutary.

It is this mental exercise, this drilling of mental powers, that constitutes not the least important feature of rational education. The pernicious idea that education consists simply in cramming a stock of information into the mind, as you would provisions into a larder, cannot be too earnestly combated.

Human minds are not to be stuffed as turkeys are for Thanksgiving; nor packed as trunks are for a vacation.

To abuse the mind by subjecting it to abnormal strains produced by overloading it with undigested mental nutriment too frequently results in arresting its development and impairing its vigor and versatility for the remainder of life. Study is the process by which we incorporate into the mind the thought or mental production of another and make it part and parcel of our own mental being. It includes not simply a cursory acquaintance with books or objects. It embraces patient and thoughtful assimilation of the knowledge contained in those books or objects, and results in enlargement or enlightenment of mind. This is particularly true of the study of law, which is coextensive "with the boundless variety of human concerns." It reveals to the student the fundamental principles upon which civil

It

opens up for his investigation otherwise hidden springs of history; it narrates the origin and progress of civil and judicial institutions; it indicates the sound functions and boundaries of good government. pertains to the most sacred and solemn transactions in which human beings can engage in this life, and affords opportunities. for exploring the domains in which private, municipal, national and international rights. severally move.

Affording a field of inquiry so vast and extending over a period of time which dates from the remotest antiquity, the study of law is calculated to furnish an expansive and profitable course of mental discipline.

The following are among the chief features of mental discipline such a course of study presents:

I.

Concentration of attention.

Legal study offers no inducement to the sleepy, slovenly, careless or frivolous student. A law text-book can have no attraction for the person who is not prepared for hard work. Charles Lamb, in his appreciative essay entitled, "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple," informs his readers that one of the celebrities he describes, while enjoying a high reputation for legal acumen, actually possessed very little knowledge of law. The essayist adds: “When a case of difficult disposition of money, testamentary or otherwise, came before him, he ordinarily handed it over to his man Lovel, who was a quick-witted little fellow, and would dispatch it out of hand by the light of his natural understanding, of which he

had an uncommon share." Had that worthy lived to-day I doubt not he would have had little difficulty in figuring before the world as a "briefless barrister." The light of natural understanding is not the light of jurisprudence; and however sharp-witted and gifted a student of law may be, he quickly discovers that nothing else and nothing less than alert attention and painstaking diligence will satisfy the demands of the textbooks and treatises he studies. This is an indispensable condition of legal study, and involves a course of mental discipline of the most thorough character. It trains the student not to jump to conclusions, frequently reminding him, when he attempts to do so, that such mental gymnastics are leaps in the dark. It trains him at concentrate his attention upon the work before him. His time is misspent and his labor is in vain if he withdraws his attention for a moment and thus breaks the continuity of thought contained in the section or chapter he is reading. He will sometimes find that even after he has read a section with moderate carefulness he has failed to convey to his mind the correct sense intended by the author; and hence a re-reading and a particularly strict study of the paragraph is required. Close and careful reading, the exclusion of all foreign matters of thought, the closing of the ears of the mind to all other voices, and undivided attention to the voice of the author as it speaks in the book, this is a feature of the mental discipline the study of law

ensures.

2. A second feature of mental discipline the study of law emphasizes is a drilling in the habit of systematic thought.

It is a source of increasing gratification to the eager and interested student to note, as he proceeds from stage to stage in his legal studies, the perfectly reasonable and sensible relationship in principle which exists between different branches of the law; to trace the process of thinking exhibited in any distinct piece of legislation from its

inception to its perfection or present appearance; to remark the evolution of distinct rights, remedies and titles from judicial dicta and decisions; to observe how former decisions have been followed in some cases in their spirit rather than in their letter; while in other cases they have been overruled, modified, or extended in their application, not by reason of any arbitrary caprice, much less partiality, on the part of the court, but by reason of an attempt to bring them into conformity with fundamental general principles of law and equity.

3. A third feature of mental discipline. the study of law presents is the facility of generalization it fosters.

What are the sententious legal and equity maxims interspersed throughout law treatises but made pieces, crystals, of generalization, the essence of judicial administration for centuries past and the guide for judicial administration for centuries to come?

Similarly might we refer to the established definitions of legal terms; and legal literature generally is largely illustrative of the same fact. Text-books, especially on subjects not previously treated of, are of necessity based upon the decisions of the courts which furnish the material out of which generalization of statement and treatment is constructed.

4. Another advantage in the way of mental discipline arising from the study of law is that it trains the student to examine all sides of a question.

It is the misfortune of not a few thinkers that by a partial mental development they are too apt to suppose that there is only one side to a question, and that the side they happen to perceive. Thinkers of this description remind one of the blinkers that form a part of a horse's harness in some places. These blinkers are broad pieces of leather attached to a horse's headgear to prevent him from looking in any other direction than the way in which his head is turned. Even so there are many who by