A Cycle of Cathay Or China South And North With Personal Reminiscences
A Cycle of Cathay Or China South And North With Personal Reminiscences
W a P William Alexander Parsons Martin
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The low estimation in which the military are held accounts in some measure for the misfortunes that have lately overtaken the empire. Military mandarins are mostly illiter- ate, the ground of selection in preliminary tests being feats of strength, skill, and agility, such as throwing a hundred-pound stone, fixing an arrow in a bull's-eye, or turning a double som- ersault. I have known some who possessed the strength and the intelligence of an ox. A mandarin's first privilege is exemption from t...orture. When therefore it is thought desirable to extort a confession from one, even of the humblest, it is necessary to obtain an imperial decree stripping him of his official cap, which, like the magic cap of Siegfried, shields him from violence. It is derogatory to the dignity of a mandarin to go afoot. The military are re- quired to mount a horse, while civilians are carried in a sedan or a cart, a usage older than Confucius, who, when asked to sell his carriage for a charitable object, replied that "being a mandarin he could not go on foot.
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