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THE CHINA REVIEW.
properly, she appears to have gone with Yen So, Fan Tien and Huang Che to Cheng- chien's mother, Mrs. Chang, and curried off 180 and more measures of corn, the provision for her support.
This was both a disregard of her duty to her aunt-in-law, and an application of another's property to her own necessities, and therefore improper, but Lei Lien seents to have felt no compunction, but has even laid a false case before the authorities.
Truly the Yen family have acted in a way worthy of their name, and Mrs. Lei and Mrs. fo have been forgetful of their duty, the one to her aunt, the other to her mistress und Lei Lien, and Tse-sheng appears to have directed the women's war in the back- ground.
We decree therefore that Lei Lien aud his friends Yen So, Fan Tien and Huang Che be flogged; that the settlement be re- covered; and when the originator of the trouble, Yen Toe-sheng, is caught, that he alsu be dealt with.
NOTE.-A brother not responsible for debt if there has been partition of property previous to its accruing. The personal property of a deccused debtor will be first applied to satis- faction of bis debts, and if that be insuffi- cient his real property may be taken, but no claim can be made on that of his relatives. It would also seem by implication that where the family property is held jointly that the various beneficiaries are severally liable for each other's debts.
DECISION OF VEN-USIA O-EST.
Recovery of Debts.
In this case there is a debt of over Tls. 100, but no proof beyond a hare note, which is scarcely of more value as evidence than
an old string of knotted cords, the more that the debt was contracted in the time of Wan-leih many years ago, and the original parties to it are all dead, and not produce- able; as Pong-hnan says, "how can you find out the facts if you don't know the man." We recommend the plaintiff to consider his elaim like a burut note, and as the ode says
put it down to charity,"
NOTE--A debt may be inheritable, and an action brought upon it although all the original parties are dead, but very clear evidence will be required to sustain it.
DECISION OF WEN TAI-CHING. Kucovery of Debts,
Hsü Lang-ching, the plaintiff, is a dealer in cotton from Honan, he supplied some by order to Shin Ai-men and Sun Tuau-cho, and although they have already worked it up into clothes, his money bag is still empty. At the houring defeudants have no excuse and promise payment. We order them in addition to be logged for the greater security of strangers trading here.
NOTE.-Delay in payment is punishable.
DECISION OF WEN-TAI-CHING.
Recovery of Debts.
In this case Wu Shih-cho had obtained an order from the Magistrate Kuo against Tung Yen-ju to pay certain rent claimed, but he still delays payment, and as Yen-ju has no excuse to offer we direct him to be flogged again for his disobedience.
NOTE--If the debtor does not obey order of Court, he may be brought up again and Hlagged for disobedience.
OR. ALABASTER.
SHORT NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
67
SHORT NOTICES OP NEW
BOOKS
AND LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.
Geschichtlicher über Maass und Gewichts-
systeme in China und Japan. Bemer- kungen über die Theorie der Chinesischen Musik und ihren Zusammenhang mit der Philosophie. Vou Dr. G. Wagener. Separat-Abdruck aus dem 12ten Heft der Mittheilungen der Deutschen Ge- sellschaft für Natur and Völkerkunde Ostasiens in Tokio. 1877.
The former of the two essays here cont- bined, valuable as it is for Students of Japanese weights and measures, offers but little to glean for purely Chinese studies, except the remarks made here en passant concerning the origin of the Chinese theory of music. Whilst tracing back the history of Japanese weights and measures to Chinese sources on the basis of notes supplied to him by a Japanese Sinologist Mr. Vinagawa No- ritane, Dr. Wagener hit upon an explana- tion of Ling lun's (f) systera of music which induced him to take up the study of Chinese music and ancient Chinese philoso- phy in general. The second of the two essays, however, is a most important contri- bution to the history of Chinese music and philosophy. Dr. Wagener availed himself in these investigations, besides the notes of Mr. Vinagawa Noritane, of the Mémoires concernant les Chinoises, Ganbil's Shooking, MacClatchie's Yih King and Eitel's Fong- sbui, but especially also of the valuable essays of Dr. Müller on Chinese and Japanese music to which we have referred more than once (see China Review, Vol. V., p. 142, 269),
We have no room here to follow Dr. Wagener at length through his minute disquisitions on the practical origin and scientific development of the Chinese theory of music and on the relation which music bears in China to philosophy, notably to the system of diagrams and numbers, as exhibit- ed in the Yib King, Ho-t'u and Loh-shu, Some of his deductions are vitiated by er- roneous conceptions derived from Canon MacClatchie's Introduction to the Yih King, as for instance the supposition, underlying a great part of Dr. Wagener's argument, that Fuhi had arranged the diagrams in a circle, an arrangement which is the cha- racteristic feature of the modern school of
Yik King commentators (founded by circa A.D. 990) and was entirely foreign to the ancient philosophy of China. But, thanks to the information derived from Ja- panese Sinologists, Dr. Wagener disnovered, in several points, the untrustworthiness of Canon MacClatchie's assertions. Thus, for instance, referring to the following note of Canon MacClatchie's (Introd. VI., note 1), "the original number of Heaven is Three and the original number of Earth is Six; but Heaven always includes Earth which is situated in his centre, and hence the num- her of Heaven in the Yih King is nine (3-4-6)," Dr. Wagener remarks "this ex- planation, even if it should have been derived from Chinese authors, is entirely in- admissible, for not the whole trigram of Heaven stands for Nine, but every single
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