Not one, however, of the numerous secret societies, which from time to time have flourished in China, can compare for a moment either in numbers or organization with the formidable association known as the Heaven and Earth Society, and also as the Triad Society, or Hung League, which dates from the reign of Yung Chêng, and from first to last has had one definite aim,--the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty. The term "Triad" signifies the harmonious union of heaven (_q.d._ God), earth, and man; and members of the fraternity communicate to one another the fact of membership by pointing first up to the sky, then down to the ground, and last to their own hearts. The Society was called the Hung League, because all the members adopted Hung as a surname, a word which suggests the idea of a cataclysm. By a series of lucky chances the inner working of this Society became known about fifty years ago, when a mass of manuscripts containing the history of the Society, its ritual, oaths, and secret signs, together with an elaborate set of drawings of flags and other regalia, fell into the hands of the Dutch Government at Batavia. These documents, translated by Dr G. Schlegel, disclose an extraordinary similarity in many respects between the working of Chinese lodges and the working of those which are more familiar to us as temples of the Ancient Order of Free and Accepted Masons. Such points of contact, however, as may be discoverable, are most probably mere coincidences; if not, and if, as is generally understood, the ritual of the European craft was concocted by Cagliostro, then it follows that he must have borrowed from the Chinese, and not the Chinese from him. The use of the square and compasses as symbols of moral rectitude, which forms such a striking feature of European masonry, finds no place in the ceremonial of the Triad Society, although recognized as such in Chinese literature from the days of Confucius, and still so employed in the every-day colloquial of China.