58
[8] Notes on Official Rank and Degrees [in China]
[9] Notes on Ranks and Duties of Customs Officials [A subject on which Mesny would be an authority in his own right]
[10] Notes on Manners and Customs of the Chinese
[11] Notes on the Cycles of Cathay for nearly 5,000 years
[12] Notes on the Chinese Army and Navy
[13] Law of the Ch'ing dynasty
Many of the items on Chinese lore printed in 1905 were individually dated 1895 and had obviously been prepared at the time Mesny was producing Volumes 1 and 2.
During the publication of the four volumes he described a large number of items such as the towns and cities of various provinces, one by one, with their longitude and latitude, ancient name, distance from Peking in 'li', their allotment of literary and military undergraduates every three years, and their produce. These must have been culled from a Chinese official source either direct or, perhaps, second hand, just as he must have culled a fair number of small items from other publications. He explains that he kept notes during his travels against the day when he would write it all up but regrettably he lost a number of his notes first in Tai-yuan in 1881 and again in Chungking in 1885. There is always the question of how reliable his memories of 30 - 40 years earlier were, and how much they were coloured by later events and changes in his own thinking.
He wrote several book crits under Editorial Notes in the final volume, books which obviously had attracted him personally such as the one in February 1905 on the book Les Chinois, Peints par Eux-memes by the Chinese General, Tcheng Ki-tong.' He explains that Tcheng was the Attache of the Chinese Legation in Paris and a first rate French scholar. However, Mesny doubted whether the General had the ability to write such a book unassisted by a Frenchman of considerable literary attainments. The book was in its tenth edition; it was,' wrote Mesny, 'well written, and gave a very good account of China or the Chinese as they were in Fukien, although many of the manners and customs
58
[8] Notes on Official Rank and Degrees [in China]
[9] Notes on Ranks and Duties of Customs Officials [A subject on which Mesny would be an authority in his own right]
[10] Notes on Manners and Customs of the Chinese
[11] Notes on the Cycles of Cathay for nearly 5,000 years
[12] Notes on the Chinese Army and Navy
[13] Law of the Ch'ing dynasty
Many of the items on Chinese lore printed in 1905 were individually dated 1895 and had obviously been prepared at the time Mesny was producing Volumes 1 and 2.
During the publication of the four volumes he described a large number of items such as the towns and cities of various provinces, one by one, with their longitude and latitude, ancient name, distance from Peking in 'li', their allotment of literary and military undergraduates every three years, and their produce. These must have been culled from a Chinese official source either direct or, perhaps, second hand, just as he must have culled a fair number of small items from other publications. He explains that he kept notes during his travels against the day when he would write it all up but regrettably he lost a number of his notes first in Tai-yuan in 1881 and again in Chungking in 1885. There is always the question of how reliable his memories of 30 - 40 years earlier were, and how much they were coloured by later events and changes in his own thinking.
He wrote several book crits under Editorial Notes in the final volume, books which obviously had attracted him personally such as the one in February 1905 on the book Les Chinois, Peints par Eux-memes by the Chinese General, Tcheng Ki-tong.' He explains that Tcheng was the Attache of the Chinese Legation in Paris and a first rate French scholar. However, Mesny doubted whether the General had the ability to write such a book unassisted by a Frenchman of considerable literary attainments. The book was in its tenth edition; it was,' wrote Mesny, 'well written, and gave a very good account of China or the Chinese as they were in Fukien, although many of the manners and customs
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