Every candidate for a degree, is required to have a "surety." These are selected from graduates of former years, who have advanced one step beyond that of hsiu-ts'ai, to that of ling-shêng hsiu-ts'ai. The total number of sureties is not necessarily large, perhaps four from each district, and many of them may be totally unacquainted with the persons for whom they become thus responsible. The nature of this responsibility is twofold, first to guarantee that the persons who enter under a particular name, really bear that name, and second that during the examination they will not violate any of the established rules. If a false name is shown to have been entered, or if a violation of the rules occurs, the ling-shêng would be held responsible, and would be likely to lose his own rank as a graduate. Each candidate is required to furnish not only a surety, but also an alternate surety, and in consideration of a present of from ten cents to five or six dollars, the ling-shêngs are quite willing to guarantee as many candidates as apply. They must be paid in advance, or they will prevent the candidate from entering the examination hall. The preliminary examinations in the District city, having been thus completed, are followed about a month later by similar ones in the Prefectural city, before the Prefect, (chih-fu). Here are gathered candidates from all the districts within the jurisdiction of the Fu city, districts ranging in number according to density of population, from two or three, to twelve or more. Those who have failed to pass the District examinations are not on that account disqualified from appearing at the Prefectural examinations, which, like the former, are intended to act as a process of sifting, in preparation for the final and decisive trial before the Literary Chancellor. The details of the Prefectural examinations are similar to those already described, and the time required is about the same. The number of candidates in a thickly-settled Prefecture, will often amount to more than 10,000. As no ordinary examination building will accommodate so many at once, they are examined in relays. The examinations are conducted by the Prefect, but it by no means follows that those who have been first in the District examinations will be so now. The order changes, indeed, from day to day, but those who are constantly toward the head of the list, are regarded as certain to pass the Chancellor's examination. The writer is acquainted with a man who at his examination for the first degree, stood last in a list of seventeen, at the trial next before the final one. But in that test he was dropped one number, missing his degree by this narrow margin. His grief and rage were so excessive as to unbalance his mind, and for the greater part of his life he has been a heavy burden on his wife, doing absolutely nothing either for her support or for his own.