It will be observed that no penalty is assigned for the offence of damaging the actual graves, this being an offence which is almost unknown; though a man was once charged before me by the whole of his fellow-villagers with the offence of digging up and levelling an old grave (_chüeh p'ing ku fên_). It was admitted by the prosecutors that the grave in question was very ancient and that the branch of the family to which it belonged had long been extinct. The fact that the whole village made a point of denouncing their sacrilegious neighbour (who had hoped to extend the boundaries of his arable land by encroaching on a corner of the graveyard that no one seemed to want) shows how heinous a crime it is in China to disturb the resting-places even of the unknown dead. Sometimes the regulations are cut on a great stone slab which is set up within the graveyard itself. If no definite regulations have been agreed upon, the custom, when the sanctity of a graveyard has been violated, is for the elders of the clan to meet in council and decide the case according to circumstances. If the convicted man refuses to accept the punishment pronounced upon him, or if he belongs to another village or clan, the matter usually comes before the magistrate. A case arising out of the theft of some graveyard trees was lately submitted to my decision owing to the truculent behaviour of the malefactor, who refused to submit to the headmen's judgment. After investigating the circumstances I sentenced him to pay a fine of ten dollars, which was to be applied to the upkeep of the ancestral temple; to plant three times the number of trees that he had cut down; and to erect a stone tablet within the graveyard at his own expense setting forth the offence of which he had been guilty and enlarging upon the severe punishments that would befall others who attempted in future to commit like misdeeds.