His conflicts were not yet ended.  A conspicuous advantage of his high position was that it qualified him as a candidate for membership of the Board of Censors.  Nor did fortune desert her favourite in this instance.  After writing several papers to show his knowledge of law, history, and politics, he came forth clothed with powers that made him formidable to the highest officers of the state—­powers somewhat analogous to the combined functions of censor and tribune in ancient Rome.

Before I proceed to show how our “knight of the longbow” employed his new authority, a few words on the constitution of that august tribunal, the Board of Censors, may prove interesting to the reader.  Its members are not judges, but prosecuting attorneys for the state.  They are accorded a freedom of speech which extends even to pointing out the shortcomings of majesty.  How important such a tribunal for a country in which a newspaper press with its argus eyes has as yet no existence!  There is indeed a court Gazette, which has been called the oldest newspaper in the world; but its contents are strictly limited to decrees, memorials, and appointments.  Free discussion and general news have no place in its columns; so that in the modern sense it is not a newspaper.

The court—­even the occupant of the Dragon Throne—­needs watch-dogs.  Such is the theory; but as a matter of fact these guardians of official morals find it safer to occupy themselves with the aberrations of satellites than to discover spots on the sun.  About [Page 223] thirty years ago one of them, Wukotu, resolved to denounce the Empress Dowager for having adopted the late emperor as her son instead of making him her grandson.  He accordingly immolated himself at the tomb of the late emperor by way of protesting against the impropriety of leaving him without a direct heir to worship his manes.  It is doubtful whether the Western mind is capable of following Wukotu’s subtle reasoning; but is it not plain that he felt that he was provoking an ignominious death, and chose rather to die as a hero—­the champion of his deceased master?

If a censor succeeds in convicting a single high functionary of gross misconduct his fortune is made.  He is rewarded by appointment to some respectable post, possibly the same from which his victim has been evicted.  Practical advantage carries the day against abstract notions of aesthetic fitness.  Sublime it might be to see the guardians of the common weal striking down the unworthy, with a public spirit untainted by self-interest; but in China (and in some other countries) such machinery requires self-interest for its motive force.  Wanting that, it would be like a windmill without wind, merely a fine object in the landscape.