richer brethren and charge them with occasioning their misery. It often happened that the rich patrician had stood godfather to the child of the starving mechanic. This was an indefeasible bond of sympathy between them. If the patrician could help the other, he might be relied on to do it. Industry of all kinds languished. The glass works of Murano lost their longestablished importance. In the sixteenth century 28,000 pieces of cloth were made in the city; toward the end of the eighteenth century the amount was only 800 pieces. The people shrugged their shoulders and smiled. Their decadence was pitiable; yet they could not but acknowledge that it was inevitable. In 1757 the clerk of the Controller of the Mint was convicted of embezzling 5974 ducats of State money. This was a particularly grave crime. Nevertheless, when it was known that the man had a destitute family, charity boxes were set in the churches in their behalf, and 16,000 lire, or more than £600, was thus collected for them. This is a trait of the age worth recording. "It was a time of noisy festivals and dull curses, of latent misery and ostentatious munificence, of elegant immorality and open hypocrisy." Perhaps Venice was never more alluring than when the Venetians lived and moved in it like the people in Watteau's pictures, when Goldoni was writing immortal comedies at £12 apiece, when the Ridotto was daily thronged with patricians and strangers, when the canals were first lighted with torches in iron sconces, and when France was beginning that upheaval which was to result, among much else, in the overthrow of the Lion of St. Mark. Senatorial work had become a mere farce. The councillors, like the rest of the city who could afford it, lived for pleasure, not business.

Motions were read and confirmed all in a breath. This done, the Venetian oligarchs sighed with relief and fell to talking about their love affairs and evening engagements. It was significant that while publie gambling lasted, at the Ridotto a patrician sat at the head of each of the ten tables and showed the notes and gold with which he was ready to play against all comers. The only condition he made was that players should be either patricians like himself or masked. In the evening the younger nobles amused themselves for an hour or two at the theatre. Here their behavior was not always worthy of their gentle origin and polite upbringing. We read that they took pride in spitting from their boxes upon the heads and shoulders of the people in the pit. Conduct of this kind, however, was, of course, excep tional.

Such was Venice when the end came. The last Doge, a poor weak fellow, bowed the head to Napoleon when the demand was made. He called it resignation to the Divine will" a congenial euphemism. On the 12th May, 1797, of 547 members of the Great Council, only thirty made a stand against Napoleon's request that the government should be changed. Thus the oligarchy died. A brief dramatic frenzy took the people when they learned what bad happened. They mutilated the winged lion of St. Mark and burned the Golden Register and ducal standards in the Piazza of St. Mark, while " a knot of half-naked women danced the carmagnola" round the tree of liberty. This was notably appropriate; for it was within a stone's throw of the prison in which Carmagnola himself, three centuries and a half before, was deprived of both liberty and life by the Venetian Senate.-National Review.

CHINESE titles are regarded as a species of office, qualifying the holder to draw pay from the treasury, but requiring from him at the same time the performance of certain duties. In our own more civilized land the peers need do nothing (they need not throw out the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill); but then neither do they receive anything, unless they have the good for

tune to be descended from the Merrie Monarch. In China a title can only be gained by success in war. No amount of quibbling at the bar, no brewings, however excellent, of draught stout will make a man a peer. The most persuasive of special pleaders this backward people would, in the figurative language of the third emperor of the dynasty, describe as

"a bare stick," and, if they followed literally his late Majesty's advice, soundly drub. Even the makers of samshoo, the national (and nasty) drink, are held in no great repute. You must, if you would be ennobled, either take a town from the rebels, or, what is equally efficacious, commit suicide when the rebels are taking it from you. The Chinese of all nations perhaps have the most vivid realization of a future existence-for, as a rule, it is the heroic ghost who gets the title, his son succeeding him after three years or so as second peer. In the pages of the Peking Gazette, that exhaustless storehouse of quaint facts, are many accounts of this ennoblement of dead heroes. The sequel to one such story throws so much light on the position and prospects of a Chinese peer (albeit a peer of low degree), that it is worth transcribing in full. It is in the form of a petition to the censorate at Peking:

"I am 32 years of age, and come from Linch'ing in Shantung. In the year 1854 my father, who was a trainband captain, lost his life at the attack on our native town made by the rebels, and so distinguished himself that he was created a yün ch'i-yü. As his eldest son I succeeded to the title, and in 1871 I joined the garrison at Linch'ing to learn my military duties. The major in command, whose one idea was self-enrichment, paid me only 11 crowns (558.) at the end of nearly a year's service instead of the 19 crowns (£5) to which I was entitled; and, again, only paid me 12 crowns as my salary for the spring and autumn. A fellow yün ch'i-yü was treated in the same manner, and we made a joint complaint to the major, who took a dislike to us in consequence, and falsely declared that as our papers had not arrived he was not allowed to issue full pay to us. The mother of my colleague complained to the provincial treasurer of these deductions in her son's pay, and he referred the matter to the prefect of Chinan. The major, knowing well that his excuses were false, got hold of my colleague and kept him in hiding, so that he could not appear at the inquiry; finally he forced him to poison himself. The major again issued reduced pay to me in the year 1874, and at last turned me out of the garrison on the ground that I had delayed in presenting myself at a certain military review.""

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A yün ch'i-yü is the eighth of the nine ranks into which the national-as distinguished from the imperial-nobility is divided. Chinese names are a weariness to Western ears; but it really is very difficult to avoid them altogether when treating of Chinese peers. The first five ranks may be rendered, and commonly are rendered, by our "duke,' marquis," earl," viscount," and "baron." The sixth rank, which literally translated is that of light-charioted city-warden," might by parity of reasoning be turned by "baronet;" but as no successor of the most high but rather hard-up prince, King James, has followed his example and created hereditary knights, squires, or, shall we say? squireens, it is not easy to find fitting equivalents for the last three grades. These, the "mounted city-warden," the "cloud mounted-warden," and the "mounted-warden by grace,' are perhaps best expressed, on paper, by their quaint if unpronounceable originals, ch'i tu-yü, yün ch'i-yü, and ên ch'i-yü.

There are only two Chinese kung, or dukes not of the imperial blood. These are the Yen-sheng Kung, the "Duke Transmitter of the Sage," the representative of Confucius; and the Hai-cheng Kung, "Purifier of the Seas," the descendant of Huang, conqueror of Formosa for the Manchus. The latter title is some two centuries old, the former was instituted in 1235. The Confucian Duke," as he is commonly styled by foreigners, enjoys a prestige which no change of dynasty affects; yet perhaps a native essayist two or three years ago took too audacious advantage of this fact. He had noticed that the ostensible unity of the Roman Catholics gave them an amount of power which he, as a Confucianist, could not but deprecate; he urged, therefore, that there be established throughout China a Confucian hierarchy (with Confucian bishops in partibus), and at the head of that hierarchy be placed the Transmitter of the Sage, as an orthodox Chinese Pope.

The present Purifier of the Seas, Huang Pao-ch'êng, is a colonel in the provincial army of Fukien, bis native province. It is indeed obligatory on every Chinese noble to serve in some military capacity, unless he has reached a certain rank in the civil service, or is content, as was a remarkable yün ch'i-yü last year, to forego his allowance. That, we should think, would be

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no great hardship, if all he could draw was some £5 a year-though £5 a year would almost feed a family in China. These allowances, like all Chinese official salaries, were cut down in the troublous times of Hsien-feng, when the Taipings held Nanking and the Allies were bombarding Taku; but they were to be paid in full from and after New Year's Day (Feb. 3) 1886. They are provided out of the provincial funds, and the consequence is a rooted objection on the part of provincial treasurers to the creation of new peers. In 1884 the Governor of Kiangsi petitioned the throne on the subject. Already," he wrote, "there is an annual call of over 50,000 crowns to meet the salaries of the hereditary nobles, and unless some means are adopted of reducing the expenditure under this head, it will be impossible to continue to meet the call. Other provinces, and prefectures in those provinces, have had limitations laid down as to the number of holders of hereditary nobility. In Hunan, for instance, the number is limited to 400; in Nanking to 348; in Soochow to 150; in Anhui to 176. In Kiangsi there are already 483, which is more than anywhere else; still, as it would not be humane to cut down the number abruptly, I would propose to reduce the salaries paid by a certain percentage, and to limit the recipients to the present number, viz., 483." Peers were not over well paid in Kiangsi as it was, for the Governor's figures give to each an average salary of but little more than 103 crowns, or some £25 a year. A similar memorial from Fukien, in 1887, makes the average only 57 crowns for 360 recipients. What is the total number of nobles in China does not, in the absence of a Chinese Burke, appear; but from the memorials we may take it to be between two and three thousand for the eighteen provinces. This absence of a Burke, by the way, is sometimes felt even by Peking. When Tso Tsung-tang was engaged in the recovery of Kashgar he recommended one of his generals for promotion in the peerage. The Court, in a very good humor at the signal success of the Chinese arms, had already made Tso a marquis, and his right-hand man and future successor in the governorship of the reconquered country, Liu Chin-t'ang, a Baron. They acceded promptly to Tso's request and created his general a "mounted city

warden." Then Tso wrote again and respectfully pointed out that the general was already-had, in fact, for some time been -a mounted city-warden. Matters were finally arranged by making him a "lightchariot warden'' instead ; but there really seems to have been bad management somewhere.

The troubles of these wardens often find their way into the Gazette. One yün ch'iyü suffered in 1874 through overmuch zeal. "Wishing to perfect himself in rifle-shooting for the monthly competition, he was in the habit of practising at a target in a mulberry plantation which stood in some waste land in an unfrequented spot within the walls. One day in October when he was shooting, two men came with some donkeys along the neighboring road. One of the donkeys ran off the road, and the driver in following it came into the line of fire, and was killed by the yün ch'i-yü, who could not see him for the trees." The unlucky noble was punished by banishment to a place a thousand miles away, by a hundred blows administered on an ignominious portion of his person, and a fine of £2 10s to pay for his victim's funeral-a very characteristic Chinese sentence. Apparently his nobility did not save him from the indignity of a beating, as the lowest scholarly degree would have done. If this is so, it is not to be wondered at that men of his class are anxious to secure such degree. They hesitate, however, to enter the lists as a very curious memorial from the Hanlin pointed out in 1882-" through a fear of possible loss of their title should they do so." This is as though a baronet of the United Kingdom should shrink from "Smalls" lest he ultimately be ploughed in "Greats," and thereby lose his rank. The Hanlin proposed, as a relief measure, that baronets and the rest should, as was once the rule, be by virtue of heir titles eligible for the triennial examinations, and able to compete for the usual degrees without prejudice to their position." That is, they were to be given their "Mods, testamur without entering the schools, and allowed to have a shot at their B. A. without running the disagreeable risk of forfeiting their rank and their five pounds or so of yearly pay. This pay, small as it is, they would not in any case be entitled to draw in full until they were 18 years old, nor would they necessarily receive it when

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incapacitated for duty by age, so that a paid peerage is not quite such an object of envy as it might and should be.

The general rule of succession to a Chinese title is the same as with us; that is to say, the eldest son by the legal wife succeeds. If there is no son by the wife, then a son by a handmaid may take the title, just as the Mikado of Japan, so lauded for his civilized ways by Sir Edwin Arnold, will be succeeded by a prince whom in the West we should regard as illegitimate. The practice must tend to make titles more permanent than with us; but as if even this were insufficient to the end, it constantly happens that in the absence of sons a title is passed on to a nephew or cousin. The reason for this proceeding appears in a memorial pub. lished in 1874. One Chang Chih-Kung had been killed in action; whereupon the crown bestowed the title of "mounted warden" on his nephew. The nephew turned traitor, and being caught lost title and head. It was now urged that the forfeited title "should be revived in the next line, in order to soothe the ghost of Chang Chih-Kung." It does not follow, as has been already said, that the successor will be granted the same rank. An earldom referred to in the Gazette for 1872 was to be hereditary for sixteen generations, after which the holder was to receive the rank of warden by grace' in perpetuity." In 1864 a brigadier-general who had distinguished himself at the recapture of Nanking from the Taipings, was made a viscount. He died of his wounds the following month. Nine years after his death a baby nephew was adopted as heir to his ghost, and upon him was bestowed the title not of viscount, but of yün ch'i-yü. Sometimes, but very rarely, the title is inherited by a brother. One such case had a curious issue. The inheritor, like his brother, died unmarried. Before that happened, however, he had left his record. of services, his patent of nobility, and his genealogical table, in charge of a young clansman. The clansman rose to the occasion. Giving himself out to be the son of the deceased, and getting two friends to stand as the necessary sureties, he made application through the local authorities for permission to succeed. This was granted him, and he was sent as military secretary to a battalion. His captain's suspicions, however, were presently

aroused (how, it does not appear), and the new peer was arrested and sent for trial before the district magistrate. (There is no trial of peers by peers in China.) He " proved contumacious," but as he was identified by an uncle, the magistrate felt justified in sending him before the provincial judge, who found him guilty. The legal sentence was penal servitude for life, but by virtue of a fortunate Act of Grace (consequent on the recovery of the Empress Dowager) this was commuted into banishment for three years, a beating, and repayment of any salary drawn. A similar sentence was passed in 1883 upon another impostor, a captain in the army, who previous to detection had received 617 crowns as salary. The utmost efforts of the officials could only recover some seventy-two dollars, after selling up the whole of the captain's possessions. As for the penal servitude, the offender got off that on the plea that " a rheumatic affection of the legs brought on in military expeditions against banditti had been so aggravated by the confinement he had undergone" that he could not walk to the place of banishment. The reason why severe sentences are, at all events on paper, passed against such impostors is because their proceedings amount to a fraud on the revenue. On such a ground even Mr. Labouchere would object to the casual assumption of titles by persons who had no right to them.

Courtesy titles are unknown in China. It is true that an adopted son of Li Hungchang-who was made an earl for the victories Gordon helped him to gain-bas posed as "Lord Li" or "Viscount Li" in London and elsewhere; but he probably, nay certainly, owes this, not to his own vanity or the grace of his emperor, but to too flattering foreign friends. An Englishman "dearly loves a lord," and the opportunity to my-lord the Viceroy's son (now Chinese minister at Tokio) was too good to be lost. As a matter of fact he will not succeed as Earl Po-i (the Grand Secretary's title) if Li Hung-chang leaves a son by blood. Indeed it is not only premature but presumptuous for any man to give himself out as necessarily the successor to a Chinese title. The ordinary procedure is for the provincial authorities to report the death of a noble, and for the Emperor thereupon to direct them to ascertain who should be appointed to succeed