o hit upon the right Category. Even when the Category is the
right one, many pages of Index have frequently to be turned over; but
once fix the reference in the Index, and the rest is easy, the
catch-word in each case being printed on the margin of each page, just
where the finger comes when turning the pages rapidly over.

The Chinese are very fond of collections of reprints, published in
uniform editions and often extending to several hundred volumes. My
earliest acquaintance with literature is associated with such a
collection in English. It was called _The Family Library_, and ran to
over a hundred volumes, if I recollect rightly, and included the works
of Washington Irving and the immortal story of _Rip Van Winkle_. There
is also a Chinese Rip Van Winkle, a tale of a man who, wandering one day
in the mountains, came upon two boys playing checkers; and after
watching them for some time, and eating some dates they gave him, he
discovered that the handle of an axe he was carrying had mouldered into
dust. Returning home, he found, as the Chinese poet puts it,

"City and suburb as of old,
But hearts that loved him long since cold."

Seven generations had passed away in the interim.

The Cambridge Library possesses several of these collections of
reprints. One of them is perhaps extra valuable because the wooden
blocks from which it was printed were destroyed during the T'ai-p'ing
Rebellion, some forty years ago.

I may mention here, though not properly belonging to this section, that
we possess a good collection of the curious pamphlets issued by the
T'ai-p'ing rebels.

Other interesting works to be found in Division B are the Statutes of
the present dynasty, which began in 1644, and even those of the previous
dynasty, the latter being an edition of 1576.

Then there is the Penal Code of this dynasty, in several editions;
various collections of precedents; handbooks for magistrates, with
recorded decisions and illustrative cases.

A magistrate or judge in China is not expected to know anything about
law.

Attached to the office of every official who may be called upon to try
criminal cases is a law expert, to whom the judge or magistrate may
refer, when he has any doubt, in private, just as our unpaid justices of
the peace in England refer for guidance to the qualified official
attached to the court.

Before passing on to the next section, one last volume, taken at
haphazard, bears the weird title, _A