an show that none of his ancestors for three generations
have been either actors, barbers and chiropodists, priests,
executioners, or official servants.

Want of means may be said to offer no obstacle in China to ambition and
desire for advancement. The slightest aptitude in a boy for learning
would be carefully noted, and if found to be the genuine article, would
be still more carefully fostered. Not only are there plenty of free
schools in China, but there are plenty of persons ready to help in so
good a cause. Many a high official has risen from the furrowed fields,
his educational expenses as a student, and his travelling expenses as a
candidate, being paid by subscription in his native place. Once
successful, he can easily find a professional money-lender who will
provide the comparatively large sums required for his outfit and journey
to his post, whither this worthy actually accompanies him, to remain
until he is repaid in full, with interest.

A successful candidate, however, is not usually sent straight from
the examination-hall to occupy the important position of district
magistrate. He is attached to some magistracy as an expectant official,
and from time to time his capacity is tested by a case, more or less
important, which is entrusted to his management as deputy.

The duties of a district magistrate are so numerous and so varied that
one man could not possibly cope with them all. At the same time he is
fully responsible. In addition to presiding over a court of first
instance for all criminal trials in his district, he has to act as
coroner (without a jury) at all inquests, collect and remit the
land-tax, register all conveyances of land and house-property, act as
preliminary examiner of candidates for literary degrees, and perform a
host of miscellaneous offices, even to praying for rain or fine weather
in cases of drought or inundation. He is up, if anything, before the
lark; and at night, often late at night, he is listening to the
protestations of prisoners or bambooing recalcitrant witnesses.

But inasmuch as the district may often be a large one, and two inquests
may be going on in two different directions on the same day, or there
may be other conflicting claims upon his time, he has constantly to
depute his duties to a subordinate, whose usual duties, if he has any,
have to be taken by some one else, and so on. Thus it is that the
expectant official every now and then gets his chance.

This s