Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/100

the capital is the Hing-po, or Board of Punishments. A measure of mystery attaches to the duties of this Board, for though its functions may be roughly described as those of a court of cassation and administration, the limits of its power are vague. Whenever high officials are guilty of any offence, the Throne directs that they be handed over to the Board of Punishments for the determination of a penalty. But although such committals are very numerous, they constitute only a small part of the Board's duties. Its principal business is to revise all the capital sentences pronounced by the tribunals throughout the Empire, for which purpose its officers combine with those of the Censorate and the Supreme Court—to be presently spoken of—to form the Three Law Chambers (San-fuh-sz), and these, again, with six other tribunals, organise a collegiate Court of Errors. As a matter of fact, this particular function of revision is, to a large extent, merely formal, since a majority of the persons capitally convicted in the provinces either die in prison or are executed before their cases reach the Court of Errors or the Three Chambers in the metropolis. Yet the organisation of such tribunals indicates the high value set upon life by Chinese legislators, in theory at all events, though in practice their system is conspicuously unsuccessful. It is part of the business of the Board of Punishments to provide for the publication of legislative enactments, to superintend jails and to receive moneys levied