unindistinguishable in the common crowd, that
new devices were essential.

The Emperor in his distress proposed the
hazardous plan of selling civil offices for
money. Hitherto it is well known that in
China the immemorial practice has been to
cultivate a literary class, and to make promotion
in civil offices strictly dependent upon
intellectual ability. The literati have thus
become a body of the greatest influence and
importance in China; and the whole body
was insulted and aggrieved when the Emperor
deprived them of the hope that by skill and
study they, or any Chinese who would do as
they had done, might come to hold high office
in the state. Offices were to be sold for
money. There is no nation that respects
wealth less as a merit than the Chinese,
because distinctions and ranks have for ages
in that country represented various degrees
of education.

When it was announced that civil offices
were saleable, there appeared so many
purchasers to make deposit of their money, that
they presently began to calculate that it would
take ten years to supply all candidates with
the places they had booked and paid for,
unless vacancies occurred more frequently
than usual. The educated class, therefore,
was not more aggrieved than a large body of
the monied men. To still the clamour of the
purchasers, the Emperor and his advisers
were on the alert to make the vacancies as
numerous as possible. The slightest
misconduct was excuse for the dismissal of a
civil officer, and the putting of an impatient
expectant in his seat. As the dismissed men
had obtained their offices by the old test of
education, and were turned out to make room
for men with money, these proceedings greatly
tended to increase the disaffection, and to
alienate the lettered men—the most influential
body in the empire—from a weak and failing
government that had fallen already too much
into popular contempt. But the extremity
was urgent; the fear of British men-of-war
was great; our "China money" must be
paid, though it could be paid only with the
heart-blood of the Chinese empire.

By these steps China descended to its
present state of internal dissension. Criminals
were pardoned for money. To save money,
members of the learned class were deprived
of the fixed stipend which had always before
paid their expenses to the place of public
examination. Inhabitants of valleys in Honan,
that were reduced by the floods to the condition
of marshes or lakes, petitioned earnestly
for aid; but Government could not afford to
listen to their prayers.

On the 25th of February, 1850, the old
Emperor of China died after a reign of about
thirty years, and was succeeded by his fourth
son, Yih-chu, then under twenty years of age.
The substitution of a young and inexperienced
for a mature hand, and the young man's
unwise dismissal of the most experienced
ministers, added greatly to the extent and
activity of the spirit of insurrection.

In the middle of 1850 a rebellion broke out
in the province of Kwang-se. The leader of
this movement, Leting-pang, inscribed on his
banners "Extermination to the Tartar and
Restoration of the Ming Dynasty." The
revolt spread, small towns were captured, and
the district of Ho-chow was occupied, government
troops were beaten. New leaders arose.
One styled himself on his banners Ping Toing
Wang, "the King who subdues the Tartars;"
another took the name of "Hairy Head,"
rejecting the Tartar tonsure. At the end of
1850, a Chinese official thus reported to the
Emperor the devastations in Kwang-se: "The
outlaws have continued to increase in number;
officers have been killed by them in their
encounters, and they have taken up different
positions, mustering thousands at each. The
inhabitants pillaged, from first to last, amount
to many tens of thousands of families.
Hundreds of thousands of fields and lands
were lying waste, producing nothing for lack
of cultivation. The communications were
blocked up, and all the approaches by land
and water occupied by the rebels, so that the
supplies of Government could not pass."

In 1851 the rebellion in Kwang-se extended
to the Canton province, and became the rebellion
in "the two Kwang." The expense of
the contest with the rebels further distracted
the administrators of the ruinous imperial
revenue.

The news which arrived in June, 1851,
informed us that the troubles were increasing,
that a leader in Kwang-se had named the
present year the first of Tien-tih, "Celestial
Virtue," and had issued copper coin in that
name, at the same time that he invited
members of the educated classes to come
forward and take office under him. The next
news told us that the capital of Kwang-se had
been sacked, and that the rebellion in the
two Kwang, had become the rebellion in the
two Kwang, Hoonan, and Keang-se. Tien-
tih was afterwards to be heard of as
proclaiming to the people that, if his rule
triumphed, "the land would become happy,
and the governors honest as those in ancient
times." At the beginning of the present year,
the Emperor's troops continued to be worsted
in their contests with the rebels. For the
ultimate result of the doubtful struggle, we
must look to the news brought by forthcoming
overland mails.

If the Tartar dynasty be overthrown, and
we are to have pure Chinese to deal with in
the year of the anticipated treaty revision,
1855, it is not easy to be very sanguine on the
subject of our consequent advantages. So
far as Europe is concerned, the owls will have
been ejected by the moles, and we shall
have to show things to the blind instead of
to the blinking. But, of course, the Opium
War has opened a grand field for European
commerce, and bestowed new lights on China.