We have given a sketch of the arts and sciences of China, but it would be totally impossible to give the reader any thing like an idea of the character and morals of its inhabitants. When China was first explored by European travellers it was believed to be a nation that had alone found out the true secret of government, where the virtues were developed by the operation of the laws: indeed, judging from what they had read, an almost perfect people was expected to greet their sight. Alas! how is history falsified! Few nations, it is now agreed, have so little honor or feeling, or so much duplicity, cunning, and mendacity. Their affected gravity is as far from wisdom as their ceremonies are from politeness. The government of China is one of fear; and it has produced the usual effects,—duplicity and meanness. Suspicion is one of their leading features, and thus every man is not only suspected of being a rogue, but in reality every one is a rogue. Expert thieving is considered an art, yet if discovered is punished. The merchants cheat each other by rule: hence it is not strange that the DECOY SYSTEM should have originated in that country. Laws were enacted to punish those who laid the decoy, as well as those who fell into the trap. These punishments consisted of the bastinado, the pillory, banishment, hard labor, death. These two first are almost constantly in use: indeed, the merchant who is bastinadoed for leading his clerk into crime by the “decoy means,” as well as the clerk himself, looks upon it as a “paternal correction,” and thanks the judge for the care bestowed upon his morals. And yet although this system was practised some three thousand years ago, it is still followed and, of course, still punished. Even in Jewish history we have instances of this system being pursued. See 1 Kings xiii. It was also extensively practised in France during the rebellion. Mechanics and others who followed labor for maintenance were subjected to these “decoys,” which presented themselves in various shapes. An old lady residing in this city told the author that her husband found a doubloon on his work-table, placed there by a nobleman in whose house he was fitting up tapestry. Indignant at the insult offered a Frenchman and a citizen, he nailed the coin to the table, from which not without great difficulty the tempter could remove it. Is it, we ask, consistent with our form of government and the national character of the people that this relic of barbarism, like that of slavery, should be permitted to exist or be practised by its chief officers? Detectives only should adopt the system to aid them in their search _for a criminal_, but an agent detective has no right to set a decoy to test the honesty of men upon whom, even before and after his appointment, no suspicion rested. We again pronounce it mean and contemptible. XIII. Special Agents.