Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/108

is sometimes the vice-president of another; and by means of the Censorate and the General Council every portion is brought under the cognisance of several independent officers, whose mutual jealousy and regard for individual advancement, or a partial desire for the well-being of the State, affords the Emperor some guarantee of fidelity. The seclusion in which he lives makes it difficult for any conspirator to approach his person, but his own fears regarding the management of such an immense empire compel him to inform him-self respecting the action of ministers, generals, and proconsular officers. The conduct and devotion of hundreds of officers during the wars with Great Britain, and the suppression of rebellions within the past thirty years, afford proof enough that he has attached his subordinates to his ser- vice by some other principle than fear. . . . In order to enable the superior officers to exercise greater vigilance over their inferiors, they have the privilege of sending special messengers, invested with full power, to every part of their jurisdiction. The Emperor himself never visits the provinces judicially, nor has an Emperor been south of the capital during the past hundred years; he, therefore, constantly sends commissioners or legates, called Kinchai, to all parts of the Empire, ostensibly entrusted with the management of a particular business, but required also to take a general surveillance of what is going on. . .Governors in like manner send their deputies