The old gentry had been rich landowners, and had no need to exploit the peasants on such a scale.

I don't want any magistrates; these black-robed gentry are no use to me; let others nourish these idlers, who send brave thieves and honest assassins to the galleys; I love assassins and I honour thieves, and more, I choose that the culprits should judge the magistrates of the Republic."

They were, of course, equally ready to work with another group, one of southern Chinese, to attain the same end by other means, if those means should prove more advantageous: thus the gentry were not a reliable asset, but were always ready to break faith.

These gentry are a company under the protection of their great saint Sidi Aysa, who has long gone upwards, but also is now profitably employed in helping the juggling of these snake-mountebanks.

The revenge or suspicion of Ministers might sometimes pursue those who aimed at their power, or assailed their reputation; but the lesser gentry, the merchants, or the shopkeepers, were very seldom victims of arbitrary imprisonmentand I believe, amongst the evils which it was the object of the revolution to redress, this (except on the principle) was far from being of the first magnitude.

The law was not applied to Taoism, because the ruling gentry of the time were, as so often before, Confucianist and at the same time Taoist.