The members of these boards, with their councillors and subordinates, amount to twelve hundred officers.  Then there is the Board of Doctors of the Han Lin College, who have charge of the archives, history of the empire, &c.; and the Board of Censors, who are the highest mandarins, and have a peculiar office.  Their duty is to stand between the people and the mandarins, and between the people and the emperor, and even rebuke the latter if they find him doing wrong.  This is rather a perilous duty, but it is often faithfully performed.  A censor, who went to tell the emperor of some faults, took his coffin with him, and left it at the door of the palace.  Two censors remonstrated with a late emperor on the expenses of his palace, specifying the sums uselessly lavished for perfumes and flowers for his concubines, and stating that a million of taels of silver might be saved for the poor by reducing these expenses.  Sung, the commissioner who attended Lord Macartney, remonstrated with the Emperor Kiaking on his attachment to play-actors and strong drink, which degraded him in the eyes of the people.  The emperor, highly irritated, asked him what punishment he deserved for his insolence.  “Quartering,” said Sung.  “Choose another,” said the emperor.  “Let me be beheaded.”  “Choose again,” said the emperor; and Sung asked to be strangled.  The next day the emperor appointed him governor of a distant province,—­afraid to punish him for the faithful discharge of his duty, but glad to have him at a distance.  Many such anecdotes are related, showing that there is some moral courage in China.

The governor of a province, or viceroy, has great power.  He also is chosen from among the mandarins in the way described.  The only limitations of his power are these:  he is bound to make a full report every three years of the affairs of the province, and give in it an account of his own faults, and if he omits any, and they are discovered in other ways, he is punished by degradation, bambooing, or death.  It is the right of any subject, however humble, to complain to the emperor himself against any officer, however high; and for this purpose a large drum is placed at one of the palace gates.  Whoever strikes it has his case examined under the emperor’s eye, and if he has been wronged, his wrongs are redressed, but if he has complained unnecessarily, he is severely punished.  Imperial visitors, sent by the Board of Censors, may suddenly arrive at any time to examine the concerns of a province; and a governor or other public officer who is caught tripping is immediately reported and punished.