As the title rightly suggests, this is not a translation of the Qing code, but of a manual, the Lüli bianlan 律例便覽 [The Penal Code: An Easy Reader], composed Cai Songnian 蔡嵩年 and Cai Fengnian 蔡逢年, the former being retired from the Board of Punishment, and the author of the 1859 original edition, which was completed by the second for the 1872 revised edition. The aim was to compile a guide that would synthesize the more useful part of the statutes and substatutes in the Penal Code and avoid redundancies. This concern of synthetic pragmatism has certainly guided the "Reverend Père" Guy Boulais, of the Jesus Society,  in his choice to provide Catholic missionaries with a useful tool for their mission. The translation follows the order of the Bianlan, presenting therefore a digest of the code, where the order of the great parts (liubu 部, called "Livres")  and "sections" are respected, but where articles are regrouped in "chapters", presenting "lois" (lü 律) and selected "articles supplémentaires" (tiaoli 條例), completed by illustrative cases, explanatory remarks, etc., the whole being made easily readable by the use of layouts, numerating, paragraphing  (marked by §), headings simpler and clearer than in the code.   Chinese characters are more often than not provided in complement of the text and remarks — a rarity among translations! All in all, this Manuel is an excellent introduction and a useful guide  in the understanding of the late Qing code, which tend to evacuate the contradictions and equivocacy (and "redundancies") of the original in order to provide Westerners with a practical agenda.  (JB).