Editorial note — From The Fortnightly Review CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS. BY SIR JOHN BOWRING.

[Footnote 20: The Emperor Paul, of Russia, once published a decree requiring that every one who passed in front of his palace should wear short breaches and silk stockings, under penalty of a flogging. In the cold weather people took care to avoid the neighborhood of the palace, and went to their business by various circumambulations. Being annoyed at the absence of the multitude, whom he was fond of looking at from the palace windows, he published a second edict, in which he ordered that any person wearing the before-enforced costume should receive the same sort of castigation. It was said that an unfortunate foreigner, who did not understand Russian—and had he understood it, might not have escaped the penalty—was flogged on two following days for disobeying the imperial mandate—for not wearing, and for wearing, the obligatory and the interdicted costumes.]