Books and articles that have thrown light on this dark question include those of Wu Ting Fang, once minister to America; Mr. Jernigan’s _China in Law_; Sir G. T. Staunton’s _Penal Code_; Sir C. Alabaster’s _Chinese Criminal and Property Law_; Parker’s _Chinese Family Law_; Mayer’s _Chinese Government_; lengthy notes in the _Middle Kingdom_, by the learned American, S. Wells Williams; Dyer Ball’s _Things Chinese_; Professor Giles’ _Historic China_; Sir Henry Maine’s commentaries; and the old _Chinese Repository_. The Hebrew penal code, _Leviticus_, is antedated by the Chinese penal code of Shun’s reign nearly a thousand years. It can not compare, of course, in extent or in lofty principle with the Levitican code. Brutal punishments, such as branding, amputation of members, linchee, bambooing and torture made these early reigns so peaceful that it is said “money lost on the road would be left there until the owner returned to find it”. The truth probably is that this referred to the prince’s money, and that if injustice was done the common man, the inferior serf or slave, by the prince or the powerful, the weaker had to whistle for his judgment as long then as he has had to do in subsequent periods of history. Each change of dynasty brought in a revision of the code, not that it was made more humane, but that there were necessary items of _lèse majesté_ to add. For instance, the Manchus required that when the emperor passed at night, every onlooker (all except the soldiers were kept indoors) was required to turn _volte-face_ on pain of death. There was no procedure for revoking a statute. The judge could unexpectedly spring on the victim some precedent or law that was followed in the “year one”, and the prisoner could plead in vain that another law of the “year two” gave him a better chance. In other words, the mandarin practically said with one of Louis Fourteenth’s judges, to litigants: “_La loi, c’est moi_”, and he interpreted the code as he wished! United protest to the Peking censors, mobbing and refusal to pay taxes were in reality the only reprisals that the people could exert against the exactions of an unjust judge. Confucius, in rendering service as a ruler in two states, interpreted codes. One of the states, the Tsin (B. C. 246), shortly after Confucius, put in effect the Li Kwai code in six books. Codes of the following important dynasties exist: Han, Tsin, Tang, Sung, Yuan, Ming and Tsing (Manchu).