ABSTRACT
There was formerly considerable doubt as to the real or practical machinery by which the Chinese Government was enabled to keep togther, in one bond of union, the multitudinous population of that extensive empire. It was thought, and the early Jesuit missionaries encouraged the opinion, that “this learned and virtuous people,” as Voltaire called the Chinese, had attained the secret of governing men by means of certain refined maxims of morality. The researches of travellers have, however, settled that point, and it has been ascertained beyond a doubt that the Chinese are governed entirely by the whip and the bamboo.
