And in view of the fact that American officials possess power of life and death over their fellow citizens, our Government should appoint a judicial officer, also holding office during good behavior, by whom all grave cases should be tried. If we cannot afford to be just, let us economize by abrogating the office of commissioner or ambassador to Peking. That is an office which, from its emoluments, must always be given, whichever party may be in power, as a reward for party services to one who will return or be recalled before he begins to understand his business. A _chargé des affaires_, with our admiral on the station, could attend to all needful diplomacy, and thus a saving could be made and carried to the credit of the consulates. Further, as by express stipulation we debar the Chinese from adjudicating in quarrels which may arise between our citizens and the people of other countries in China, we ought to take measures for the establishing of a mixed tribunal to exercise jurisdiction in such cases; and there ought to be an arrangement by which countries which are properly represented in China might investigate and adjudicate in offences committed by foreigners not properly represented in that country: a most dangerous class of persons, who enjoy the privilege of extraterritoriality, without amenability to any tribunal, and who by their misconduct place every foreign interest in jeopardy. As with the advance of Christian civilization, society is more and more disposed to accord the rights of manhood to men of every race; so, let us hope, nations will yet be found willing to forego the advantages that greater power confers, no longer employing that power in oppressing or subverting weak states. FOOTNOTES: [10] The second number of a series of articles on Eastern Asia. REASON, RHYME, AND RHYTHM CHAPTER VII.--THE ARTIST AND HIS REALM. The Divine Attributes the base of all true Art. Aristotle teaches that: 'The object of the poet is not to conceive or treat the True as it _really_ happened, but as it _should_ have happened. The essential difference between the poet and historian is not that the one speaks in verse, the other in prose, for the work of Herodotus in verse would still be a history; that is, it would still relate what had _actually_ occurred, while it is the province of a poem to detail that which _should_ have taken place.' Thus the human soul exacts in the finite creations of the poet that justice which it ever divines, but cannot always see, because the end passes beyond its present vision, in the varying dramas of human destiny written in the Book of the Infinite God.