To the principle of universal obedience the Chinese government has added another, which is well calculated to satisfy the public mind: the first honours and the highest offices are open to the very lowest of the people. It admits of no hereditary nobility; at least none with exclusive privileges. As a mark of the Sovereign's favour a distinction will sometimes descend in a family, but, as it confers no power nor privilege nor emolument, it soon wears out. All dignities may be considered as merely personal; the princes of the blood, even, sink gradually into the common mass, unless their talents and their application be sufficient to qualify them for office, independent of which there can be neither rank nor honours, and very little if any distinction, not even in the imperial family, beyond the third generation. On public days the Emperor, at a single glance, can distinguish the rank of each of the many thousand courtiers that are assembled on such occasions by their dress of ceremony. The civilians have a bird, and the military a tyger, embroidered on the breast and back of their upper robe; and their several ranks are pointed out by different coloured globes, mounted on a pivot on the top of the cap or bonnet. The Emperor has also two orders of distinction, which are conferred by him alone, as marks of particular favour; the order of the yellow vest and of the peacock's feather. The influence that, in nations of Europe, is derived from birth, fortune, and character, is of no weight in the Chinese government. The most learned, and I have already explained how far the term extends, provided he be not of notorious bad character, is sure to be employed; though under the present Tartar government, the Chinese complain that they never arrive at the highest rank till they are advanced in years. Learning alone, by the strict maxims of state, leads to office, and office to distinction. Property, without learning, has little weight, and confers no distinction, except in some corrupt provincial governments, where the external marks of office are sold, as in Canton. Hence property is not so much an object of the laws in China as elsewhere, and consequently has not the same security. In the governments of Europe, property seldom fails to command influence and to force dependence: in China, the man of property is afraid to own it, and all the enjoyments it procures him are stolen.