It is a penal offence to issue a pirated or counterfeit edition of the
Government Almanac. No one ventures to be without one, lest he become
liable to the greatest misfortunes by undertaking the important measures
on black-balled days.
The price varies now, according to Williams, from 1-1/2d. to 5d. a
copy. The price in 1328 was 1 tsien or cash for the cheapest edition,
and 1 liang or tael of silver for the edition de luxe; but as these
prices were in paper-money it is extremely difficult to say, in the
varying depreciation of that currency, what the price really amounted to.
[Illustration: Mongol Compendium Instrument seen in the Observatory
Garden]
[Illustration: Mongol Armillary Sphere in the Observatory Garden]
["The Calendars for the use of the people, published by Imperial command,
are of two kinds. The first, Wan-nien-shu, the Calendar of Ten Thousand
Years, is an abridgment of the Calendar, comprising 397 years, viz. from
1624 to 2020. The second and more complete Calendar is the Annual
Calendar, which, under the preceding dynasties, was named Li-je, Order
of Days, and is now called Shih-hsien-shu, Book of Constant Conformity
(with the Heavens). This name was given by the Emperor Shun-chih, in
the first year of his reign (1644), on being presented by Father John
Schall (Tang Jo-wang) with a new Calendar, calculated on the principles
of European science.
