When any person becomes bankrupt, he is immediately committed to prison in the governor’s palace, and is called upon for a declaration of his effects.  After he has remained a month in prison, he is liberated by the governor’s order, and a proclamation is made, that such a person, the son of such a one, has consumed the goods of such a one, and that if any person possesses any effects, whatever belonging to the bankrupt, a full discovery must be made within one month.  If any discovery is made of effects belonging to the bankrupt, which he had omitted to declare, he suffers the punishment of the bamboo, and is upbraided with having remained a month in prison, eating and drinking, although he has wherewithal to satisfy his creditors.  He is reproached for having fraudulently procured and embezzled the property of others, and is chastised for stripping other people of their substance.  But if, after every inquiry, the debtor does not appear to have been guilty of any fraud, and if it is proved to the satisfaction of the magistrate, that he has nothing in the world, the creditors are called in, and receive a part of their claims from the treasury of the Bagbun.  This is the ordinary title of the emperor of China, and signifies the Son of Heaven, which we ordinarily pronounce Magbun.  After this, it is publickly forbidden to buy of or sell to the bankrupt, that he may not again have an opportunity of defrauding his creditors, by concealing their money or effects.  If it be discovered that the bankrupt has any money or effects in the hands of another, and that person makes no disclosure within the time limited, the person guilty of this concealment is bambooed to death, and the value discovered is divided among the creditors; but the debtor or bankrupt must never more concern himself with trade.

Upon a stone ten cubits high, erected in the public squares of all the cities, the names of all sorts of medicines, with the exact prices of each, are engraven; and when the poor stand in need of relief from physic, they receive, at the treasury, the price that each medicine is rated at.  In China there is no tax upon land, but every male subject pays a rateable capitation in proportion to his wealth and possessions.  When a male child is born, his name is immediately entered in a public register, and when he has attained his eighteenth year he begins to pay the poll-tax; but when once a man has reached his eightieth year, he not only ceases to contribute, but even receives a pension from the treasury, as a provision for old age, and in acknowledgment of what he paid during his youth.  There are schools, maintained at the public charge, in every town, where the children of the poor are taught to read and write.  The women wear nothing on their heads besides their hair, but the men are covered.  In China there is a certain town called Tayu, having a castle, advantageously situated on a hill, and all the fortresses in the kingdom are called by the same name.  The Chinese are generally handsome, of comely stature, and of fair complexions, and by no means addicted to excess in wine.  Their hair is blacker than that of any other nation in the world, and the Chinese women wear it curled.