The more intelligent members of the Chinese community of Weihaiwei soon discovered, after the arrival of the foreigners, that the British system of administration and of dealing with civil suits in the Courts differed from that of China in nothing so conspicuously as in the absence of "squeezes" and the ease with which the magistrate could be directly approached by the poorest litigant. There are always large numbers, however, who are afraid to bring their plaints direct to the court, either from a fear that they will be prevented by the police or other native employees of the Government from gaining the foreign magistrate's ear, or because they dare not openly bring a lawsuit or make accusations against some influential person or family in their own village. For the benefit of such timid individuals I long ago set up, on the roadside in the neighbourhood of the South Division court, a locked letter-box for the reception of any and every description of petition or memorial which the writers for some reason or other preferred not to bring openly to the court. Into this box, the contents of which are examined by myself alone, petitions of various kinds are dropped almost daily: and though a large majority are anonymous denunciations of the private enemies of the writers, and are immediately destroyed, a considerable number have led to some discoveries of great value from the administrative point of view, and have sometimes greatly facilitated the labours of the court in ascertaining the rights and wrongs of pending cases. If the petition-box served no other good purpose it would still be useful as throwing interesting lights on certain aspects of the character of the people. The petitions received through this medium are so heterogeneous that it is difficult to select a typical specimen for purposes of illustration; but the following translation of a document recently found in the petition-box may give some idea of the characteristic features of a large class.