of all the nobles in a province.  Civil and military offices were not differentiated.  The feudal lords or princes of states often resided at the king’s court, officers of that court being also sent forth as princes of states.  The king was the source of legislation and administered justice.  The princes in their several states had the power of rewards and punishments.  Revenue was derived from a tithe on the land, from the income of artisans, merchants, fishermen, foresters, and from the tribute brought by savage tribes.

The general structure and principles of this system of administration remained the same, with few variations, down to the end of the Monarchical Period in 1912.  At the end of that period we find the emperor still considered as of divine descent, still the head of the civil, legislative, military, ecclesiastical, and ceremonial administration, with the nation still divided into the same four classes.  The chief ministries at the capital, Peking, could in most cases trace their descent from their prototypes of feudal times, and the principal provincial administrative officials—­the Governor-General or Viceroy, governor, provincial treasurer, judge, etc.—­had similarly a pedigree running back to offices then existing—­a continuous duration of adherence to type which is probably unique.

Appointment to office was at first by selection, followed by an examination to test proficiency; later was introduced the system of public competitive literary examinations for office, fully organized in the seventeenth century, and abolished in 1903, when official positions were thrown open to the graduates of colleges established on a modern basis.

In 1912, on the overthrow of the Manchu monarchy, China became a republic, with an elected President, and a Parliament consisting of a Senate and House of Representatives.  The various government departments were reorganized on Western lines, and a large number of new offices instituted.  Up to the present year the Law of the Constitution, owing to political dissension between the North and the South, has not been put into force.

Laws

Chinese law, like primitive law generally, was not instituted in order to ensure justice between man and man; its object was to enforce subordination of the ruled to the ruler.  The laws were punitive and vindictive rather than reformatory or remedial, criminal rather than civil.  Punishments were cruel:  branding, cutting off the nose, the legs at the knees, castration, and death, the latter not necessarily, or indeed ordinarily, for taking life.  They included in some cases punishment of the family, the clan, and the neighbours of the offender.  The lex talionis was in full force.