Book excerpt: "Huang Liu-hung was one of some 1,500 local magistrates in seventeenth-century China, and he wrote this book as a manual for other magistrates ... In it readers will find insight into everyday life and legal processes during the early Ch'ing period, as well as into the mentality of the ruling elite and its attitude toward the common people ... Also provides a basis for comparing China's present with its past, particularly in matters concerning the pursuit of ideological conformity and political control"--From publisher description.