PAGAN JURISPRUDENCE. By Albert C. Applegarth. -PJESPITE the title selected for this dis' sertation, it requires some extension of the imagination even to speak of juris prudence among most heathen nations. The word itself must be adjudged almost a misnomer. Even what vestiges there are of this very desirable commodity exist exclu sively for the benefit of the upper strata of society. The poorer classes are simply and generally ignored. Until quite recently, there were no native lawyers in Japan. Now, however, several are practising before the courts in the metro politan centres, — Tokio and Yokohama. It can hardly be said, however, that they have as yet established a footing, or that the profession as such has a well-defined exist ence. As no civil code has been adopted, and as the criminal law still remains in its inci pient stages of development, it may be a considerable time before these promising adjuncts of civilization attain a position of much importance. In China any one who wishes to institute legal proceedings before a magistrate, must first purchase a sheet of paper, bearing the official stamp of the incumbent. The litigant then goes to a scribe, presumed to be com petent, and employs this individual to write out the complaint in terse, classical language. He next carries his petition to a certain bureau, where it is perused by a somnambulent clerk. If the statement be clear, if the case be not too complicated, this haughty potentate stamps it for the insignificant fee of forty cents or more, — the amount depend ing upon the intrinsic importance of the matter. When this operation is completed, the official in question is supposed to convey the papers to the magistrate's secretary. Without the stamp, the complaint cannot be filed. If filed, no further attention is paid to it unless the plaintiff possesses a very sub

stantial bank account or considerable social influence. If he be powerful, and his charge be against a friend or any person connected with the magistrate, the interested party receives immediate notification of the com plaint, and the case is usually compromised. The time required for all this elaborate and embarrassing machinery depends prin cipally or entirely upon the amount of money invested in bribes. Nothing on earth, it is claimed, could persuade a Chinese judge to render a decision which was not sustained by sound reason; but all Celestials are only too well aware that dollars, secretly trans ferred, constitute par excellence such a ration ditre. In one of the native courts of the Flowery Kingdom, a litigant, to secure judgment in his favor, sent the magistrate five dollars just before the trial. When, at the conclu sion of the suit, he was condemned to receive forty lashes, he imagined the judge could not be aware that he was the man who had sent the pecuniary reminder. In order to recall this interesting fact to the magisterial mind, he raised his hand, with the fingers widely distended, and lustily shouted, " I have right on my side, I have right on my side." Per ceiving that these rather embarrassing vo ciferations would not be discontinued until the defendant ascertained he was understood, the magistrate arose in all his conscious majesty, and leaning over his desk, extended both his hands, with the fingers all apart, and in evident protest at such invincible stupidity, exclaimed, "The other man has twice as much right on his side as you have on yours." The prisoner was at once convinced of his guilt. He now knew that there was nothing for him to do but to take the flogging to which he had been sentenced. Some of the Chinese proverbs, while not exactly compli