“Furthermore,” I continued, gratified at having found one who so intelligently appreciated the deficiencies of his own country and the unblemished perfection of ours, “his parents and immediate descendants, if any should exist, would be submitted to a fate as inevitable but slightly less contemptuous--slow compression, perchance; his parents once removed (thus enclosing your venerable personality), and remoter offsprings would be merely put to the sword without further ignominy, and those of less kinship to about the fourth degree would doubtless escape with branding and a reprimand.” “Lordelpus!” exclaimed the patriarchal one, hastily leaping to the extreme limit of the wooden couch, and grasping his staff into a significant attitude of defence; “what’s that for?” “Our system of justice is all-embracing,” I explained. “It is reasonably held that in such a case either that there is an inherent strain of criminality which must be eradicated at all hazard, or else that those who are responsible for the virtuous instruction of the young have been grossly neglectful of their duty. Whichever is the true cause, by this unfailing method we reach the desired end, for, as our proverb aptly says, ‘Do the wise pluck the weed and leave the roots to spread?’” “It’s butchery, nothing short of Smithfield,” said the ancient person definitely, rising and moving to a more remote distance as he spoke the words, yet never for a moment relaxing the aggressive angle at which he thrust out his staff before him. “You’re a bloodthirsty race in my opinion, and when they get this door open in China that there’s so much talk about, out you go through it, my lad, or old England will know why.” With this narrow-minded imprecation on his lips he left me, not even permitting me to continue expounding what would be the most likely sentences meted out to the witnesses in the case, the dwellers of the same street, and the members of the household with whom the youth in question had contemplated forming an alliance. Among the many contradictions which really almost seem purposely arranged to entrap the unwary in this strangely under-side-up country, is the fact that while the ennobled and those of high official rank are courteous in their attitude and urbane--frequently even to the extent of refusing money from those whom they have obliged, no matter how privately pressed upon them--the low-caste and slavish are not only deficient in obsequiousness, but are permitted to retort openly to those who address them with fitting dignity. Here such a state of things is too general to excite remark, but as instances are well called the flowers of the tree of assertion, this person will set forth the manner in which he was contumaciously opposed by an oblique-eyed outcast who attended within the stall of one selling wrought gold, jewels, and merchandise of the finer sort.