The prefect then met a large deputation of the shopkeepers in their guild-house in the course of the day, and expressed his dissatisfaction at the way in which the district magistrate had acted.  A settlement was thus reached, which included fireworks for the students, and business was resumed.

* * * * *

Any individual who is aggrieved by the action, or inaction, of a Chinese official may have immediate recourse to the following method for obtaining justice, witnessed by me twice during my residence in China, and known as “crying one’s wrongs.”

Dressed in the grey sackcloth garb of a mourner, the injured party, accompanied by as many friends as he or she can collect together, will proceed to the public residence of the offending mandarin, and there howl and be otherwise objectionable, day and night, until some relief is given.  The populace is invariably on the side of the wronged person; and if the wrong is deep, or the delay in righting it too long, there is always great risk of an outbreak, with the usual scene of house-wrecking and general violence.

It may now well be asked, how justice can ever be administered under such circumstances, which seem enough to paralyse authority in the presence of any evil-doer who can bring up his friends to the rescue.

To begin with, there is in China, certainly at all great centres, a large criminal population without friends,—­men who have fallen from their high estate through inveterate gambling, indulgence in opium-smoking, or more rarely alcohol.  No one raises a finger to protect these from the utmost vengeance of the law.

Then again, the Chinese, just as they tax themselves, so do they administer justice to themselves.  Trade disputes, petty and great alike, are never carried into court, there being no recognised civil law in China beyond custom; they are settled by the guilds or trades-unions, as a rule to the satisfaction of all parties.  Many criminal cases are equally settled out of court, and the offender is punished by agreement of the clan-elders or heads of families, and nothing is said; for compounding a felony is not a crime, but a virtue, in the eyes of the Chinese, who look on all litigation with aversion and contempt.

In the case of murder, however, and some forms of manslaughter, the ingrained conviction that a life should always be given for a life often outweighs any money value that could be offered, and the majesty of the law is upheld at any sacrifice.

It is not uncommon for an accused person to challenge his accuser to a kind of trial by ordeal, at the local temple.

Kneeling before the altar, at midnight, in the presence of a crowd of witnesses, the accused man will solemnly burn a sheet of paper, on which he has written, or caused to be written, an oath, totally denying his guilt, and calling upon the gods to strike him dead upon the spot, or his accuser, if either one is deviating in the slightest degree from the actual truth.