With reference to the history of events and the progress of the people generally, it is the custom for each city to keep an exact record of every memorable event as it happens, its most remarkable places and inhabitants, good or bad; moreover, of their manners and customs; and although there are many who, by offering bribes to the governor, obtain honorable mention in these annals, upon the whole the accounts are considered to be tolerably accurate, for at the end of every forty years the mandarins of every city assemble and examine the accounts, and expunge what they deem unfit to remain recorded. Theoretically, the will of the emperor is the only law; the lives, fortunes, and worldly happiness of his subjects depend upon its wildest caprice; but, in reality, it is only theoretically, for in the words of another great authority, who not only resided at the court of Pekin some thirty years, but absolutely held office therein. "One would imagine that this unlimited power of the Emperor would often occasion very unfortunate events in the government, and indeed it sometimes hath, as nothing in this world is without its alloy of inconvenience, yet so many are the provisions and so wise the precautions which the laws have prescribed to prevent them, that a prince must be wholly insensible of his own reputation and even interest, as well as the public good, who continues long in the abuse of his authority; for if he hath any regard for his own reputation, there are three things which will prevail with him to govern by justice, not passion: first, the old laws, given from the foundation of the empire, have laid it down as a standing maxim, that kings are properly the fathers of their people, _and not masters placed upon the throne only to be served by slaves_. The words in italics contain a doctrine, by the way, that our first James strived so hard to inculcate, that it ultimately led to a revolution in England, not very dissimilar to that in China, of which I am now writing. Such having been the teaching of those law-givers, Confucius and others, who are to the present day venerated as deities in China, the Emperor's proudest title of honor has been in all ages Ta-fou" (that is, grandfather). This theory of what the Emperor should be, is so deeply imprinted in the minds of the people and the mandarins, that, when they offer praises, whether deserved or not, it is based upon his presumed affection for his people. The teachers and philosophers continually set forth in their books that the state is but a large family, and that he who knows how to govern the one is best capable of governing the other; so that, if the Emperor neglects, never so little, the practice of this maxim, he may be a great warrior, an able politician, a learned man, and yet meet with neither love nor esteem from his people. Indeed, they value him only as they believe he is, or is not, a father to them.