'Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven[…]
The other technique, known as the magic asterisk, consisted of hiding phony cuts in the small print of various budget documents in order to exaggerate the Administration's success in spending reduction and to minimize the projected deficit.
Under this system, the country is divided into eleven wage regions. Thus, there are eleven different variations of the thirty wage-grades of civil servants. The differential between each regional scale is about 3 percent, making a disparity of 30 percent between the highest and the lowest scales. There has been scant information in the Chinese press as to how the scales are determined or where the eleven regions are. The fist or highest scale is reported to be in force at Hai-k'ou on Hainan Island, the second in Canton and Shanghai, and the third in Peking and Tientsin.
The Antients would certainly have invoked the Goddeſs Flora for this Purpoſe, and it would have been no Difficulty for their Prieſts or Politicians to have perſuaded the People of the real Preſence of the Deity, though a plain Mortal had perſonated her, and performed her Office.