Chapter V: Population and Statistics (2)

The people are grouped into hamlets and villages, under the control of village elders and officers. In the district of Nanhai, which forms the western part of the city of Canton, and the surrounding country for more than a hundred square miles, there are one hundred and eighty _hiang_ or villages; the population of each _hiang_ varies from two hundred and upwards to one hundred thousand, but ordinarily ranges between three hundred and thirty-five hundred. If each of the eighty-eight districts in the province of Kwangtung contains the same number of _hiang_, there will be, including the district towns, 15,928 villages, towns, and cities in all, with an average population of twelve hundred inhabitants to each. From the top of the hills on Dane’s Island, at Whampoa, thirty-six towns and villages can be counted, of which Canton is one; and four of these contain from twelve to fifteen hundred houses. The whole district of Hiangshan, in which Macao lies, is also well covered with villages, though their exact number is not known. The island of Amoy contains more than fourscore villages and towns, and this island forms only a part of the district of Tung-ngan. The banks of the river leading from Amoy up to Changchau fu, are likewise well peopled. The environs of Ningpo and Shanghai are closely settled, though that is no more than one always expects near large cities, where the demand for food in the city itself causes the vicinity to be well peopled and tilled. In a notice of an irruption of the sea in 1819, along the coast of Shantung, it was reported that a hundred and forty villages were laid under water.

Marco Polo describes the mode followed in the days of Kublai khan: “It is the custom for every burgess of the city, and in fact for every description of person in it, to write over his door his own name, the name of his wife, and those of his children, his slaves, and all the inmates of his house, and also the number of animals that he keeps. And if any one dies in the house, then the name of that person is erased, and if a child is born its name is added. So in this way the sovereign is able to know exactly the population of the city. And this is the practice throughout all Manzi and Cathay.”[159] This custom was observed long before the Mongol conquest, and is followed at present; so that it is perhaps easier to take a census in China than in most European countries.

The law upon this subject is contained in Secs. LXXV. and LXXVI. of the statutes. It enacts various penalties for not registering the members of a family, and its provisions all go to show that the people are desirous rather of evading the census than of exaggerating it. When a family has omitted to make any entry, the head of it is liable to be punished with one hundred blows if he is a freeholder, and with eighty if he is not. If the master of a family has among his household another distinct family whom he omits to register, the punishment is the same as in the last clause, with a modification, according as the unregistered persons and family are relatives or strangers. Persons in government employ omitting to register their families, are less severely punished. A master of family failing to register all the males in his household who are liable to public service, shall be punished with from sixty to one hundred blows, according to the demerits of the offence; this clause was in effect repealed, when the land tax was substituted for the capitation tax. Omissions, from neglect or inadvertency to register all the individuals and families in a village or town, on the part of the headmen or government clerks, are punishable with different degrees of severity. All persons whatsoever are to be registered according to their accustomed occupations or professions, whether civil or military, whether couriers, artisans, physicians, astrologers, laborers, musicians, or of any other denomination whatever; and subterfuges in representing one’s self as belonging to a profession not liable to public service, are visited as usual with the bamboo; persons falsely describing themselves as belonging to the army, in order to evade public service, are banished as well as beaten.[160] From these clauses it is seen that the Manchus have extended the enumeration to classes which were exempted in the Han, Tang, and other dynasties, and thus come nearer to the actual population.

~ITS PROBABLE ACCURACY.~

“In the Chinese government,” observes Dr. Morrison, “there appears great regularity and system. Every district has its appropriate officers, every street its constable, and every ten houses their tything man. Thus they have all the requisite means of ascertaining the population with considerable accuracy. Every family is required to have a board always hanging up in the house, and ready for the inspection of authorized officers, on which the names of all persons, men, women, and children, in the house are inscribed. This board is called _mun-pai_ or ‘door-tablet,’ because when there are women and children within, the officers are expected to take the account from the board at the door. Were all the inmates of a family faithfully inserted, the amount of the population would, of course, be ascertained with great accuracy. But it is said that names are sometimes omitted through neglect or design; others think that the account of persons given in is generally correct.” The door-tablets are sometimes pasted on the door, thus serving as a kind of door-plate; in these cases correctness of enumeration is readily secured, for the neighbors are likely to know if the record is below the truth, and the householder is not likely to exaggerate the taxable inmates under his roof. I have read these _mun-pai_ on the doors of a long row of houses; they were printed blanks filled in, and then pasted outside for the _pao-kiah_ or tithing man to examine. Both Dr. Morrison and his son, than whom no one has had better opportunities to know the true state of the case, or been more desirous of dealing fairly with the Chinese, regarded the censuses given in the _General Statistics_ as more trustworthy than any other documents available.

~EVIDENCES IN FAVOR OF THE CENSUS.~

In conclusion, it may be asked, are the results of the enumeration of the people, as contained in the statistical works published by the government, to be rejected or doubted, therefore, because the Chinese officers do not wish to ascertain the exact population; or because they are not capable of doing it; or, lastly, because they wish to impose upon foreign powers by an arithmetical array of millions they do not possess? The question seems to hang upon this trilemma. It is acknowledged that they falsify or garble statements in a manner calculated to throw doubt upon everything they write, as in the reports of victories and battles sent to the Emperor, in the memorials upon the opium trade, in their descriptions of natural objects in books of medicine, and in many other things. But the question is as applicable to China as to France: is the estimated population of France in 1801 to be called in question, because the _Moniteur_ gave false accounts of Napoleon’s battles in 1813? It would be a strange combination of conceit and folly, for a ministry composed of men able to carry on all the details of a complicated government like that of China, to systematically exaggerate the population, and then proceed, for more than a century, with taxation, disbursements, and official appointments, founded upon these censuses. Somebody at least must know them to be worthless, and the proof that they were so, must, one would think, ere long be apparent. The provinces and departments have been divided and subdivided since the Jesuits made their survey, because they were becoming too densely settled for the same officers to rule over them.

Still less will any one assert that the Chinese are not capable of taking as accurate a census as they are of measuring distances, or laying out districts and townships. Errors may be found in the former as well as in the latter, and doubtless are so; for it is not contended that the four censuses of 1711, 1753, 1792, and 1812 are as accurate as those now taken in England, France, or the United States, but that they are the best data extant, and that if they are rejected we leave tolerable evidence and take up with that which is doubtful and suppositive. The censuses taken in China since the Christian era are, on the whole, more satisfactory than those of all other nations put together up to the Reformation, and further careful research will no doubt increase our respect for them.

Ere long we may be able to traverse a census in its details of record and deduction, and thus satisfy a reasonable curiosity, especially as to the last reported total after the carnage of the rebellion. On the other hand, it may be stated that in the last census, the entire population of Manchuria, Koko-nor, Ílí, and Mongolia, is estimated at only 2,167,286 persons, and nearly all the inhabitants of those vast regions are subject to the Emperor. The population of Tibet is not included in any census, its people not being taxable. It is doubtful if an enumeration of any part of the extra provincial territory has ever been taken, inasmuch as the Mongol tribes, and still less the Usbeck or other Moslem races, are unused to such a thing, and would not be numbered. Yet, the Chinese cannot be charged with exaggeration, when good judges, as Klaproth and others, reckon the whole at between six and seven millions; and Khoten alone, one author states, has three and a half millions. No writer of importance estimates the inhabitants of these regions as high as thirty millions--as does R. Mont. Martin--which would be more than ten to a square mile, excluding Gobi; while Siberia (though not so well peopled) has only 3,611,300 persons on an area of 2,649,600 square miles, or 1-1/3 to each square mile.

The reasons just given why the Chinese desire posterity are not all those which have favored national increase. The uninterrupted peace which the country enjoyed between the years 1700 and 1850 operated to greatly develop its resources. Every encouragement has been given to all classes to multiply and fill the land. Polygamy, slavery, and prostitution, three social evils which check increase, have been circumscribed in their effects. Early betrothment and poverty do much to prevent the first; female slaves can be and are usually married; while public prostitution is reduced by a separation of the sexes and early marriages. No fears of overpassing the supply of food restrain the people from rearing families, though the Emperor Kienlung issued a proclamation in 1793, calling upon all ranks of his subjects to economize the gifts of heaven, lest, erelong, the people exceed the means of subsistence.

It is difficult to see what this or that reason or objection has to do with the subject, except where the laws of population are set at defiance, which is not the case in China. Food and work, peace and security, climate and fertile soil, not universities or steamboats, are the encouragements needed for the multiplication of mankind; though they do not have that effect in all countries (as in Mexico and Brazil), it is no reason why they should not in others. There are grounds for believing that not more than two-thirds of the whole population of China were included in the census of 1711, but that allowance cannot be made for Ireland in 1785; and consequently, her annual percentage of increase, up to 1841, would then be greater than China, during the forty-two years ending with 1753. McCulloch quotes De Guignes approvingly, but the Frenchman takes the rough estimate of 333,000,000 given to Macartney, which is less trustworthy than that of 307,467,200, and compares it with Grosier’s of 157,343,975, which is certainly wrong through his misinterpretation. De Guignes proceeds from the data in his possession in 1802 (which were less than those now available), and from his own observations in travelling through the country in 1796, to show the improbability of the estimated population. But the observations made in journeys, taken as were those of the English and Dutch embassies, though they passed through some of the best provinces, cannot be regarded as good evidence against official statistics.

Would any one suppose, in travelling from Boston to Chatham, and then from Albany to Buffalo, along the railroad, that Massachusetts contained, in 1870, exactly double the population on a square mile of New York? So, in going from Peking to Canton, the judgment which six intelligent travellers might form of the population of China could easily be found to differ by one-half. De Guignes says, after comparing China with Holland and France, “All these reasons clearly demonstrate that the population of China does not exceed that of other countries;” and such is in truth the case, if the kind of food, number of crops, and materials of dress be taken into account. His remarks on the population and productiveness of the country are, like his whole work, replete with good sense and candor; but some of his deductions would have been different, had he been in possession of all the data since obtained.[161] The discrepancies between the different censuses have been usually considered a strong internal evidence against them, and they should receive due consideration. The really difficult point is to fix the percentage that must be allowed for the classes not included as taxable, and the power of the government to enumerate those who wished to avoid a census and the subsequent taxation.

~POSSIBILITIES OF ERROR.~

After all these reasons for receiving the total of 1812 as the best one, there are, on the other hand, two principal objections against taking the Chinese census as altogether trustworthy. The first is the enormous averages of 850, 705, and 671 inhabitants on a square mile, severally apportioned to Kiangsu, Nganhwui, and Chehkiang, or, what is perhaps a fairer calculation, of 458 persons to the nine eastern provinces. Whatever amount of circumstantial evidence may be brought forward in confirmation of the census as a whole, and explanation of the mode of taking it, a more positive proof seems to be necessary before giving implicit credence to this result. Such a population on such an extensive area is marvellous, notwithstanding the fertility of the soil, facilities of navigation, and salubrity of the climate of these regions, although acknowledged to be almost unequalled. While we admit the full force of all that has been urged in support of the census, and are willing to take it as the best document on the subject extant, it is desirable to have proofs derived from personal observation, and to defer the settlement of this question until better opportunities are afforded. So high an average is, indeed, not without example. Captain Wilkes ascertained, in 1840, that one of the islands of the Fiji group supported a population of over a thousand on a square mile. On Lord North’s Island, in the Pelew group, the crew of the American whaler Mentor ascertained there were four hundred inhabitants living on half a square mile. These, and many other islands in that genial clime, contain a population far exceeding that of any large country, and each separate community is obliged to depend wholly on its own labor. They cannot, however, be cited as altogether parallel cases, though if it be true, as Barrow says, “that an acre of cotton will clothe two or three hundred persons,” not much more land need be occupied with cotton or mulberry plants, for clothing in China, than in the South Sea Islands.

The second objection against receiving the result of the census is, that we are not well informed as to the mode of enumerating the people by families, and the manner of taking the account, when the patriarch of two or three generations lives in a hamlet, with all his children and domestics around him. Two of the provisions in Sec. XXV. of the _Code_, seem to be designed for some such state of society; and the liability to underrate the males fit for public service, when a capitation tax was ordered, and to overrate the inmates of such a house, when the head of it might suppose he would thereby receive increased aid from government when calamity overtook him, are equally apparent. The door-tablet is also liable to mistake, and in shops and workhouses, where the clerks and workmen live and sleep on the premises, it is not known what kind of report of families the assessors make. On these important points our present information is imperfect, while the evident liability to serious error in the ultimate results makes one hesitate. The Chinese may have taken a census satisfactory for their purposes, showing the number of families, and the average in each; but the point of this objection is, that we do not know how the families are enumerated, and therefore are at fault in reckoning the individuals. The average of persons in a household is set down at five by the Chinese, and in England, in 1831, it was 4.7, but it is probably less than that in a thickly settled country, if every married couple and their children be taken as a family, whether living by themselves, or grouped in patriarchal hamlets.

No one doubts that the population is enormous, constituting by far the greatest assemblage of human beings using one speech ever congregated under one monarch. To the merchants and manufacturers of the West, the determination of this question is of some importance, and through them to their governments. The political economist and philologist, the naturalist and geographer, have also greater or less degrees of interest in the contemplation of such a people, inhabiting so beautiful and fertile a country. But the Christian philanthropist turns to the consideration of this subject with the liveliest solicitude; for if the weight of evidence is in favor of the highest estimate, he feels his responsibility increase to a painful degree. The danger to this people is furthermore greatly enhanced by the opium traffic--a trade which, as if the Rivers Phlegethon and Lethe were united in it, carries fire and destruction wherever it flows, and leaves a deadly forgetfulness wherever it has passed. Let these facts appeal to all calling themselves Christians, to send the antidote to this baleful drug, and diffuse a knowledge of the principles of the Gospel among them, thereby placing life as well as death before them.

~REVENUE OF THE EMPIRE.~

If the population of the Empire is not easily ascertained, a satisfactory account of the public revenue and expenditures is still more difficult to obtain; it possesses far less interest, of course, in itself, and in such a country as China is subject to many variations. The market value of the grain, silk, and other products in which a large proportion of the taxes are paid, varies from year to year; and although this does not materially affect the government which receives these articles, it complicates the subject very much when attempting to ascertain the real taxation. Statistics on these subjects are only of recent date in Europe, and should not yet be looked for in China, drawn up with much regard to truth. The central government requires each province to support itself, and furnish a certain surplusage for the maintenance of the Emperor and his court; but it is well known that his Majesty is continually embarrassed for the want of funds, and that the provinces do not all supply enough revenue to meet their own outlays.

~SOURCES AND AMOUNT OF REVENUE.~

The amounts given by various authors as the revenue of China at different times, are so discordant, that a single glance shows that they were obtained from partial or incomplete returns, or else refer only to the surplusage sent to the capital. De Guignes remarks very truly, that the Chinese are so fully persuaded of the riches, power, and resources of their country, that a foreigner is likely to receive different accounts from every native he asks; but there appears to be no good reason why the government should falsify or abridge their fiscal accounts. In 1587, Trigault, one of the French missionaries, stated the revenue at only tls. 20,000,000. In 1655, Nieuhoff reckoned it at tls. 108,000,000. About twelve years after, Magalhaens gave the treasures of the Emperor at $20,423,962; and Le Comte, about the same time, placed the revenue at $22,000,000, and both of them estimated the receipts from rice, silk, etc, at $30,000,000, making the whole revenue previous to Kanghí’s death, in 1721, between fifty and seventy millions of dollars. Barrow reckoned the receipts from all sources in 1796 at tls. 198,000,000, derived from a rough estimate given by the commissioner who accompanied the embassy. Sir George Staunton places the total sum at $330,000,000; of which $60,000,000 only were transmitted to Peking. Medhurst, drawing his information from original sources, thus states the principal items of the receipts:

Land taxes in money, } {
Land taxes in grain, } sent to Peking, {
Custom and transit duties, } {
Land taxes in money, { }
Grain, { kept in provinces }

{ Tls. 31,745,966 valued at $42,327,954
{ Shih 4,230,957 „ 12,692,871
{ Tls. 1,480,997 „ 1,974,662
} Tls. 28,705,125 „ 38,273,500
} Shih 31,596,569 „ 105,689,707
-------------
$200,958,694

The _shih_ of rice is estimated at $3, but this does not include the cost of transportation to the capital.[162] At $200,000,000, the tax received by government from each person on an average is about sixty cents; Barrow estimates the capitation at about ninety cents. The account of the revenue in taels from each province given in the table of population on page 264, is extracted from the _Red Book_ for 1840;[163] the account of the revenue in rice, as stated in the official documents for that year, is 4,114,000 shih, or about five hundred and fifty millions of pounds, calling each _shih_ a pecul. The manner in which the various items of the revenue are divided is thus stated for Kwangtung, in the _Red Book_ for 1842:

Taels.
Land tax in money 1,264,304
Pawnbrokers’ taxes 5,990
Taxes at the frontier and on transportation 719,307
Retained 339,143
Miscellaneous sources 59,530
Salt department (gabel) 47,510
Revenue from customs at Canton 43,750
Other stations in the province 53,670
---------
2,533,204

This is evidently only the sum sent to the capital from this province, ostensibly as the revenue, and which the provincial treasury must collect. The real receipts from this province or any other cannot well be ascertained by foreigners; it is, however, known, that in former years, the collector of customs at Canton was obliged to remit annually from eight hundred thousand to one million three hundred thousand taels, and the gross receipts of his office were not far from three millions of taels.[164] This was then the richest collectorate in the Empire; but since the foreign trade at the open ports has been placed under foreign supervision, the resources of the Empire have been better reported. A recent analysis of the sources of revenue in the Eighteen Provinces has been furnished by the customs service; it places them under different headings from the preceding list, though the total does not materially differ. Out of this whole amount the sum derived from the trade in foreign shipping goes most directly to the central exchequer.

Taels.
Land tax in money 18,000,000
_Li-kin_ or internal excise on goods 20,000,000
Import and export duties collected by foreigners 12,000,000
Import and export duties on native commerce 3,000,000
Salt gabel 5,000,000
Sales of offices and degrees 7,000,000
Sundries 1,400,000
----------
Amount paid in silver 66,400,000
Land tax paid in produce 13,100,000
----------
79,500,000

De Guignes has examined the subject of the revenue with his usual caution, and bases his calculations on a proclamation of Kienlung in 1777, in which it was stated that the total income in bullion at that period was tls. 27,967,000.

Taels.
Income in money as above 27,967,000
Equal revenue in kind from grain 27,967,000
Tax on the second crop in the southern provinces 21,800,000
Gabel, coal, transit duties, etc. 6,479,400
Customs at Canton 800,000
Revenue from silk, porcelain, varnish, and other manufactures 7,000,000
Adding house and shop taxes, licenses, tonnage duties, etc. 4,000,000
----------
Total revenue 89,713,400

The difference of about eighty millions of dollars between this amount and that given by Medhurst, will not surprise one who has looked into this perplexing matter. All these calculations are based on approximations, which, although easily made up, cannot be verified to our satisfaction; but all agree in placing the total amount of revenue below that of any European government in proportion to the population. In 1823, a paper was published by a graduate upon the fiscal condition of the country, in which he gave a careful analysis of the receipts and disbursements. P. P. Thoms translated it in detail, and summarized the former under three heads of taxes reckoned at tls. 33,327,056, rice sent to Peking 6,346,438, and supplies to army 7,227,360--in all tls. 46,900,854. Out of the first sum tls. 24,507,933 went to civilians and the army, leaving tls. 5,819,123 for the Peking government, and tls. 3,000,000 for the Yellow River repairs and Yuen-ming Palace. The resources of the Empire this writer foots up at tls. 74,461,633, or just one-half of what Medhurst gives. The extraordinary sources of revenue which are resorted to in time of war or bad harvests, are sale of office and honors, temporary increase of duties, and demands for contributions from wealthy merchants and landholders. The first is the most fruitful source, and may be regarded rather as a permanent than a temporary expediency employed to make up deficiencies. The mines of gold and silver, pearl fisheries in Manchuria and elsewhere, precious stones brought from Ílí and Khoten, and other localities, furnish several millions.

~PRINCIPAL ITEMS OF EXPENDITURE.~

The expenditures, almost every year, exceed the revenue, but how the deficit is supplied does not clearly appear; it has been sometimes drawn from the rich by force, at other times made good by paltering with the currency, as in 1852-55, and again by reducing rations and salaries. In 1832, the Emperor said the excess of disbursements was tls. 28,000,000;[165] and, in 1836, the defalcation was still greater, and offices and titles to the amount of tls. 10,000,000 were put up for sale to supply it. This deficiency has become more and more alarming since the drain of specie annually sent abroad in payment for opium has been increased by military exactions for suppressing the rebellion up to 1867. At that date the Empire began to recuperate. The principal items of the expenditure are thus stated by De Guignes:

Taels.
Salary of civil and military officers, a tithe of the impost
on lands 7,773,500
Pay of 600,000 infantry, three taels per month, half in money
and half in rations 21,600,000
Pay of 242,000 cavalry, at four taels per month 11,616,000
Mounting the cavalry, twenty taels each 4,840,000
Uniforms for both arms of the service, four taels 3,368,000
Arms and ammunition 842,000
Navy, revenue cutters 13,500,000
Canals and transportation of revenue 4,000,000
Forts, artillery, and munitions of war 3,800,000
----------
71,339,500

This, according to his calculation, shows a surplus of nearly twenty millions of taels every year. But the outlays for quelling insurrections and transporting troops, deficiency from bad harvests, defalcation of officers, payments to the tribes and princes in Mongolia and Ílí, and other unusual demands, more than exceed this surplus. In 1833, the _Peking Gazette_ contained an elaborate paper on the revenue, proposing various ways and means for increasing it. The author, named Na, says the income from land tax, the gabel, customs and transit duty, does not in all exceed forty millions of taels, while the expenditures should not much transcend thirty in years of peace.[166] This places the budget much lower than other authorities, but the censor perhaps includes only the imperial resources, though the estimate would then be too high. The pay and equipment of the troops is the largest item of expenditure, and it is probable that here the apparent force and pay are far too great, and that reductions are constantly made in this department by compelling the soldiers to depend more and more for support upon the plats of land belonging to them. It is considered the best evidence of good government on the part of an officer to render his account of the revenue satisfactorily, but from the injudicious system which exists of combining fiscal, legislative, and judicial functions and control in the same person, the temptations to defraud are strong, and the peculations proportionably great.

~OFFICERS’ SALARIES AND THE LAND-TAX.~

The salaries of officers, for some reasons, are placed so low as to prove that the legal allowances were really the nominal incomes, and the sums set against their names in the _Red Book_ as _yang tien_, or anti-extortion perquisites (lit., ‘nourishing frugality’), are the salaries. That of a governor-general is from 15,000 to 25,000 taels for the latter, and only 180 or 200 taels for the legal salary; a governor gets 15,000 when he is alone, and 10,000 or 12,000 when under a governor-general; a treasurer from 4,500 to 10,000; a judge from 3,000 to 8,000; a prefect from 2,000 to 4,500; district magistrates from 700 to 1,000, according to the onerousness of the post; an intendant from 3,000 to 4,500; a literary chancellor from 2,000 to 5,000; and military men from 4,000 taels down to 100 or 150 per annum. The perquisites of the highest and lowest officers are disproportionate, for the people prefer to lay their important cases before the highest courts at once, in order to avoid the expense of passing through those of a lower grade. The personal disposition of the functionary modifies the exactions he makes upon the people so much, that no guess can be made as to the amount.

The land tax is the principal resource for the revenue in rural districts, and this is well understood by all parties, so that there is less room for exactions. The land tax is from 1-1/2 to 10 cents a _mao_ (or from 10 to 66 cents an acre), according to the quality of the land, and difficulty of tillage; taking the average at 25 cents an acre, the income from this source would be upward of 150 millions of dollars. The clerks, constables, lictors, and underlings of the courts and prisons, are the “claws” of their superiors, as the Chinese aptly call them, and perform most of their extortions, and are correspondingly odious to the people. In towns and trading places, it is easier for the officers to exact in various ways from wealthy people, than in the country, where rich people often hire bodies of retainers to defy the police, and practise extortion and robbery themselves. Like other Asiatic governments, China suffers from the consequences of bribery, peculation, extortion, and poorly paid officers, but she has no powerful aristocracy to retain the money thus squeezed out of the people, and ere long it finds its way out of the hands of emperors and ministers back into the mass of the people. The Chinese believe, however, that the Emperor annually remits such amounts as he is able to collect into Mukden, in time of extremity; but latterly he has not been able to do so at all, and probably never sent as much to that city as the popular ideas imagine. The sum applied to filling the granaries is much larger, but this popular provision in case of need is really a light draft upon the resources of the country, as it is usually managed. In Canton, there are only fourteen buildings appropriated to this purpose, few of them more than thirty feet square, and none of them full.

FOOTNOTES:

[150] This careful digest is contained in the _Journal Asiatique_ for 1836 (April and May), and will repay perusal.

[151] The population of the Roman Empire at the same period is estimated at 85,000,000 by Merivale (Vol. IV., pp. 336-343), but the data are less complete than in China; he reckons the European provinces at 45,000,000, and the Asiatic and African colonies at the remainder, giving 27,000,000 to Asia Minor and Syria. The area of China, at this time, was less than Rome by about one-fourth.

[152] Sir G. Staunton, _Embassy to China_, Vol. II., Appendix, p. 615: “Table of the Population and Extent of China proper, within the Great Wall. Taken in round numbers from the Statements of Chow ta-zhin.”

[153] This interesting subject can then be left with the reader, who will find further remarks in Medhurst’s _China_, De Guignes’ _Voyages à Peking_, The Missionaries, in Tomes VI. and VIII. of _Mémoires_, Ed. Biot, in _Journal Asiatique_ for 1836. _The Numerical Relations of the Population of China during the 4,000 Years of its Historical Existence; or the Rise and Fall of the Chinese Population_, by T. Sacharoff. Translated into English by the Rev. W. Lobscheid, Hongkong, 1862. _Notes and Queries on China and Japan_, Vol. II., pp. 88, 103, and 117.

[154] _Sacred Edict_, pp. 51, 60.

[155] _China: Its State and Prospects_, p. 42.

[156] _Ta Tsing Leu Lee; being the Fundamental Laws, etc., of the Penal Code of China_, by Sir G. T. Staunton, Bart., London, 1810. Section CCXXV.

[157] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. I., p. 332.

[158] _Ibid._, Vol. VII., p. 503; Vol. II., p. 161.

[159] Yule’s _Marco Polo_, Vol. II., p. 152.

[160] _Penal Code_, p. 79, Staunton’s translation.

[161] _Voyages à Peking_, Tome III., pp. 55-86.

[162] The _shih_, says Medhurst, is a measure of grain containing 3,460 English cubic inches. _China: Its State and Prospects_, p. 68. London, 1838.

[163] _Annales de la Foi_, Tome XVI., p. 440.

[164] _Chinese Commercial Guide_, 2d edition, 1842, p. 143.

[165] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. I., p. 159.

[166] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. II., p. 431.