he officials as their lawful prey, and
is daily in danger of being called upon to answer some false, some
trumped-up accusation. A subscription list, nominally for a charitable
purpose, for building a bridge, or repairing a road, is sent to him by
a local magistrate, and woe be to him if he does not head it with a
handsome sum. A ruffian may threaten to charge him with murder unless
he will compromise instantly for Tls. 300; and the rich man generally
prefers this course to proving his innocence at a cost of about Tls.
3000. He may be accused of some trivial disregard of prescribed
ceremonies, giving a dinner-party, or arranging the preliminaries of
his son's marriage, before the days of mourning for his own father
have expired. No handle is too slight for the grasp of the greedy
mandarin, especially if he has to do with anything like a recalcitrant
millionaire. But this very mandarin himself, if compelled by age and
infirmities to resign his place, is forced in his turn to yield up
some of the ill-gotten wealth with which he had hoped to secure the
fortunes of his family for many a generation to come. The young hawks
peck out the old hawks' e'en without remorse. The possession of money
is therefore rather a source of anxiety than happiness, though this
doesn't seem to diminish in the slightest degree the Chinaman's
natural craving for as much of it as he can secure. At the same time,
the abominable system of official extortion must go far to crush a
spirit of enterprise which would otherwise most undoubtedly be rife.
Everybody is so afraid of bringing himself within the clutch of the
law, that innovation is quite out of the question.

Neither in the private life of a rich Chinese merchant do we detect
the same keen enjoyment of his wealth as is felt by many an affluent
western, to whom kindly nature has given the intellect to use it
rightly. The former indulges in sumptuous feasts, but he does not
collect around his table men who can only give him wit in return for
his dinner; he rather seeks out men whose purses are as long as his
own, from amongst whose daughters he may select a well-dowried mate
for his dunderheaded son. He accumulates vast wardrobes of silk,
satin, and furs; but he probably could not show a copy of the first
edition of K'ang Hsi, or a single bowl bearing the priceless stamp of
six hundred years ago. These articles are collected chiefly by
scholars, who often go without a meal or two in order to obt