present instance, and declared revenge to be at the
bottom of it all. He then sent for the wife of the murdered man,
and asked her if her husband had lately quarrelled with anybody.
She replied No, but stated that there had been some high words
between her husband and another man to whom he had refused to lend
money. The coroner at once despatched his runners to the place
where this man lived, to bid the people of that village produce
all their sickles without delay, at the same time informing them
that the concealment of a sickle would be tantamount to a
confession of guilt. The sickles were accordingly produced, in
number about eighty, and spread out upon the ground. The season
being summer there were a great quantity of flies, all of which
were attracted by one particular sickle. The coroner asked to whom
this sickle belonged, and lo! it belonged to him with whom the
murdered man had quarrelled about a loan. On being arrested, he
denied his guilt; but the coroner pointed to the flies settling
upon the sickle, attracted by the smell of blood, and the murderer
bent his head in silent acknowledgment of his crime."

Inquests are often held in China many years after the death of the
victim. Give a Chinese coroner merely the dry and imperfect skeleton
of a man known to have been murdered, and he will generally succeed in
fixing the guilt on some one. To supplement thus by full and open
confession of the accused is a matter of secondary difficulty in a
country where torture may at any moment be brought to bear with
terrible efficacy in the cause of justice and truth. Its application,
however, is extremely rare.

"Man has three hundred and sixty-five bones, corresponding to the
number of days it takes the heavens to revolve. The skull of a
man, from the nape of the neck to the top of the head, consists of
eight pieces--that of a Ts'ai-chow man, of nine; women's skulls
are of six pieces. Men have twelve ribs on either side; women have
fourteen."

The above being sufficient to show where the Chinese are with regard
to the structure of the human frame, we will now proceed to the
directions for examining bones, it may be months or even years after
death.

"For the examination of bones the day should be clear and bright.
First take clean water and wash them, and then with string tie
them together in proper order so that a perfect skeleton is
formed, and lay this on a ma