A Person Is Never Raised To The Dignity Of A Prince, Or Governor Of A City, Until He Has Attained To His Fortieth Year; For Then They Say He Has Acquired Experience.

When one of these princes or viceroys holds his court, in the city of his residence, he is seated

On a tribunal, in great state, and receives the petitions or complaints of the people; having an officer called Lieu, who stands behind the tribunal, and indorses an answer upon the petition, according to the order of the viceroy; for they null no applications but what are in writing, and give all their decisions in the same manner. Before parties can present their petitions to the viceroy, they must be submitted to the proper officer for examination, who sends them back if he discovers any error; and no person may draw up any of those writings which are to be presented to the viceroy, except a clerk versant in business, who must mark at the bottom that it is written by such a man, the son of such a man: And if the clerk is guilty of any error or mistake, he is punished with the bamboo. The viceroy never seats himself on his tribunal until he has eaten and drank, lest he should be mistaken in some things; and he receives his subsistence from the public treasury of the city over which he presides. The emperor, who is above all these princes or petty kings, never appears in public but once in ten months, under the idea that the people would lose their veneration for him if he shewed himself oftener; for they hold it as a maxim, that government can only subsist by means of force, as the people are ignorant of the principles of justice, and that constraint and violence are necessary to maintain among them the majesty of empire.

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