CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.
Crimes against property are rare in Japan, which is owing to the
high-spirited and honourable feelings that actuate all classes of the
community; but from the feudal nature of the government, the small
value attached to life, and the deadly weapons constantly carried, by
the military classes, who are notoriously proud and revengeful, crimes
against the person are very frequent.
A great check upon criminal offences is the severity of the
punishments inflicted, and the disgrace entailed upon the culprit's
family.
Although the laws are extremely severe, and in their administration
there is neither jury nor counsel, justice is delivered with great
impartiality; and the judge, who is generally the governor of the town
or district in which the offence has been committed, is entrusted with
considerable discretionary power.
When a prisoner is being examined his arms are bound to his sides by a
rope, which also passes round his neck, the end of which is held by an
official, who, if his charge prove unruly, manages him by pulls and
jerks.
'Thrashemono,' or 'public exposure,' is associated with all Japanese
punishments, and is said to be in itself a great preventive of crime,
as the spirited Japanese dread being held up to the reprobation of
their acquaintance more than they fear the extreme penalty of the law.
[Illustration: MODE OF CONDUCTING A CRIMINAL TO EXECUTION.]
The illustration, showing the mode of conducting a criminal to
execution, is an instance of 'thrashemono.' The culprit is bound on a
horse, and is preceded by a placard, borne by his relatives or
neighbours, and indicating his crime. In this manner he is conducted
through the town to the place of execution, where his sentence is read
to him. He is then placed (with his limbs still bound) over a
freshly-dug hole, where he is supported by his relatives till the
executioner's sword performs its task.
After execution, the heads of malefactors are generally exposed: that
of Simono Sedgi (the lonin who was decapitated in the presence of the
British garrison of Yokohama, for being the organizer of the
assassination of Major Baldwin and Lieutenant Bird of Her Majesty's
20th Regiment) was exhibited on the public stand at the guard-house at
the entrance of the town.
This man was a fair specimen of the lonin type, and was a most
determined ruffian, whose whole life had been a career of crime.
When exposed in the streets of Yokohama the day preceding his
execution, he conducted himself with great bravado, remarking on the
improvements in the town since he last visited it, and expressing his
regret that he had not killed a consul.
At the place of execution he made an impassioned speech, in which he
declared that he was a gentleman by birth, and had studied the arts
and sciences, and never believed the government would sacrifice a
Japanese for the death of a foreigner. He said that the days would
come when they would repent the encouragement they were now giving to
strangers; and ended by complimenting the executioner on his
well-known skill.
The lonin differs from the ordinary criminal, and is thus ably
described by the highest authority on Japanese matters:[4]--
'As a noble or head of a house is responsible for all who are of his
family, or claim his protection, when any of his people are resolved
upon a desperate enterprise they formally renounce the protection and
declare themselves "lonins;"--in other words, outlaws, or friendless
men: after which no one is responsible for their acts, and this is
considered a highly honourable and proper thing to do.
[Footnote 4: Sir Rutherford Alcock. See 'Capital of the Tycoon.']
The worst of this system is, that any one harbouring or assisting a
lonin endangers his head; and such men are, therefore, compelled to
resort to robbery and extortion as means of supporting themselves. It
generally happens that this legalised method of taking the law into
their own hands drives those who avail themselves of it into a series
of crimes, and frequently they become the associates of common
thieves.
Of the gang represented in the illustration as robbing a rich
merchant's house, one or two probably are lonins, the rest being
thieves in disguise.
The servants, kowtowing before two men, whose naked swords plainly
intimate the consequences of any attempt to give alarm, or to offer
resistance to their demands, have apparently been collecting all the
money in the house and are laying it before the thieves. The oblong
boxes are iron safes, in which the Japanese keep their money.
From the position of the other members of the gang, it is evident that
they have not got all they require, and are watching something going
on in the interior of the house. They have probably learnt that the
merchant has to forward some money for the purchase of goods by a
certain date, and know exactly how much to expect.
In the spring of 1865 the Tycoon, in levying a tax on the Yeddo
merchants, congratulated them on the fact that the portion of the
country under his immediate control was exempt from the depredations
of lonins; but notwithstanding this statement, a robbery of the nature
described took place in the capital immediately after the issue of the
Tycoon's manifesto, and a lonin concerned in it gave as an excuse for
his conduct, that he had learnt that the money was intended for
foreigners, who were settled in the country in opposition to the laws
of Gongen Sama, which had never been revoked.
With such dread are these men regarded by the non-combatant classes,
that it frequently happens that one or two will go into a village and
extort what they require without the slightest resistance being
offered.
[Illustration: LONINS, OR OUTLAWS, ROBBING A RICH MERCHANT'S HOUSE.]
[Illustration: EXPOSURE FOR INFIDELITY.]
As a rule, Japanese punishments resemble those inflicted by the
Chinese, and seem to be based on the Mosaic principle of 'an eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' Arson, for instance, is punished at
the stake; and a thief who endeavours to conceal the results of his
robberies by burying them, has the disadvantages of that mode of
concealment impressed upon him, by being himself embedded for a day or
two in the ground, with only his head out--a mode of instruction that
rarely requires a repetition of the lesson.
_Apropos_ of this punishment is the testimony of an eye-witness, who,
in passing the public execution place at Yeddo, noticed a head on the
ground, which he supposed to have been recently struck off. He had
turned away with a shudder, when a laugh from the bystanders caused
him to look again, when, to his great astonishment, the head was
vigorously puffing at a pipe which the facetious executioner had a few
moments before been smoking himself.
The last illustration shows a man and woman undergoing public exposure
for adultery--a crime which is rare in Japan and which is punished
with great severity.
With such detestation is it regarded, that, in addition to all legal
cognizance, the husband is permitted, in certain instances, to avenge
himself by taking the lives of the offenders upon the spot.
The board on the right contains the official intimation of the crime.
The curious instruments depicted in the woodcut are Japanese emblems
of justice and are to be seen at all the guard-houses; they are used
to catch runaway offenders or to pin a drunken yaconin against a wall
or house, and so facilitate the task of disarming him without danger
to the captors.
[Illustration: Sodingarami, Satsumata, and Squobo.]
Although the Japanese use torture to extract information from
obstinate criminals, they employ all necessary caution to preserve
life; and a doctor and responsible officer are always present when it
is employed, as representatives of the respective claims of humanity
and justice. A singular punishment, to which only the nobles of the
country are liable, is secret banishment to the island of Fatzisiu,
which is situated on the northern coast of the empire. It is small and
barren, rising perpendicularly from the sea. The only communication
with it is by means of a basket, which is lowered from an overhanging
tree to the water, a distance of about fifty feet.[5] From this island
there is no return, and the unhappy, incarcerated nobles, are
compelled to support themselves by weaving silks, which are the most
beautiful the country produces. A junk visits the island once a-year,
when the silks are exchanged for provisions.
[Footnote 5: In 1853 an English man-of-war visited this island, and
two of the officers were hoisted up in the basket for the purpose of
taking sights. One of them, who was my informant, describes it as a
walled-in barren island, with no other mode of ingress or egress than
that described.]