Should an examiner overlook a wrong character, and the fact be afterward made public, he might be degraded for his carelessness. A case of this sort was reported a few years ago in the _Peking Gazette_. At the triennial examination for the Han-lin, in the year 1871, after the essays had been submitted to the Han-lin examiners, the nine most meritorious ones were selected, and were sent in to the Empress Dowager--the Emperor being under age--to have the award formally confirmed. The work of greatest merit was placed uppermost, but the old lady, who had an imperial will of her own, was anxious to thwart the decision of the learned pundits; and, as chance would have it, the sunlight fell upon the chosen manuscript, and she discovered a flaw, a thinness in the paper, indicating a place in the composition where one character had been erased and another substituted. The Empress rated the examiners for allowing such "slovenly work" to pass, and proclaimed another man, whose name was Hsiang, as victor. This individual hailed from the province of Kuang-tung--a province which had produced a Senior Wrangler but once in 250 years. On his return to his native province the successful scholar was received by the local authorities with the highest possible honours. All the families owning his surname who could afford to do so paid enormous sums to be permitted to come and worship at his ancestral hall, for by this means they established a _pseudo_ claim to relationship, and were allowed to place tablets over the entrances of their own halls inscribed with the title Chuang Yüan, or Senior Wrangler. The superstitious Cantonese believed that the sunbeam which revealed the fatal flaw was a messenger sent from heaven!