PRISONS OF BURMAH
British acquisition of Burmah--Quarrels with the king in 1824--His
reprisals--British subjects seized and sent to prison--Mr. Henry
Gouger’s narrative--The “Death Prison”--Gigantic stocks--Filthiness
of prison--Tortures inflicted--Barbarous trials--Horrible
life--Rats and vermin--Smallpox--Tobacco a valuable
disinfectant--Another “Black Hole”--Chained to a leper--Released
by the advance of British troops--Penal code of Burmah--Ordeals
and punishments--Treading to death by elephants--Dacoity the last
form of resistance to British rule--Prison life--The Burmese
gaol-bird--An outbreak.
The acquisition and annexation of Burmah by Great Britain, first the
lower province with three-fourths of the seaboard, and then the entire
kingdom, were accomplished between 1824 and 1886, in a little more
than half a century, that is to say. Until this took place the country
was generally in a state of anarchy, the king was a bloodthirsty
despot, and the state council was at his bidding no better than a
band of Dacoits who plundered the people and murdered them wholesale.
The ruling powers were always anxious to pick a quarrel with their
powerful British neighbours, and were so unceasingly aggressive that
they brought on a war in 1824, which ended in the capture of Rangoon
and the occupation of Pegu and Martaban with the cession of the coast
province of Aracan.
The outbreak of hostilities led to cruel retaliation by the king of
Burmah upon all Europeans who resided in the country, whether as
missionaries or merchants engaged in trade. One of them, an Englishman,
Mr. Henry Gouger, was arrested as a spy and arraigned before a court
of justice with very little hope of escaping with his life. He was
fortunately spared after suffering untold indignities and many positive
tortures. Eventually he published his experiences, which remain to this
day as a graphic record of the Burmese prisons as they then existed.
He was first committed to the safe keeping of the king’s body guard,
and confined with his feet in the stocks; then he was transferred to
the “death prison,” having been barbarously robbed and deprived of his
clothing. He was not entirely stripped, but was led away with his arms
tied behind his back, bare-headed and bare-footed to the _Let-ma-yoon_,
the “antechamber of the tomb.”
Let me proceed now in the narrator’s own words:--
“There are four common prisons in Ava, but one of these only was
appropriated to criminals likely to suffer death. It derived its
remarkably well-selected name, _Let-ma-yoon_, literally interpreted,
‘Hand, shrink not,’ from the revolting scenes of cruelty practised
within its walls. This was the prison to which I was driven. My heart
sank within me as I entered the gate of the prison yard which, as it
closed behind me, seemed to shut me out forever from all the interests
and sympathies of the world beyond it. I was now delivered over to
the wretches, seven or eight in number, who guarded this gaol. They
were all condemned malefactors, whose lives had been spared on the
condition of their becoming executioners; the more hideous the crime
for which he had to suffer, the more hardened the criminal, the fitter
instrument he was presumed to be for the profession he was henceforth
doomed to follow. To render escape without detection impossible, the
shape of a ring was indelibly tattooed on each cheek, which gave rise
to the name they were commonly known by, _pahquet_, or ‘ring-cheeked,’
a term detested by themselves as one of reproach and one we never
dared to apply in addressing them. The nature of his qualification
for the employment was written in a similar manner across the breast.
The chief of the gang was a lean, wiry, hard-featured old man whom we
taught ourselves to address under the appellation _aphe_, ‘father,’
as did all his subordinates. Another bearing an appropriate motto had
murdered his brother and had hidden his body piecemeal under his house.
A third was branded _thoo-kho_, ‘thief.’ This troop of wretches were
held in such detestation that the law prohibited their entering any
person’s house except in execution of their office. It happened, soon
after I entered, that the exigencies of this brotherhood were great
from an increase of business, and no brave malefactor (inhumanity
was always styled bravery here) being ready to strengthen the force,
a young man convicted of a petty offence was selected to fill the
vacancy. I beheld this poor youth doomed to the most debasing ignominy
for the rest of his life by these fatal rings, his piteous cries at the
degradation he was undergoing being drowned by the jeers and ridicule
of the confederates. They soon made him as much a child of the devil as
themselves.
“The ‘father’ of this interesting family received me at the gate with a
smile of welcome like the grin of a tiger, and with the most disgusting
imprecations hurried me to a huge block of granite embedded in the
centre of the yard. I was made to sit down and place my ankles on the
block of stone while three pairs of fetters were struck on with a maul,
a false blow of which would have maimed me forever. But they were too
expert for this, and it was not a time to care for minor dangers. Thus
shackled, I was told, as if in derision, to walk to the entrance of the
prison-house not many yards distant; but as the shortness of the chains
barely permitted me to advance the heel of one foot to the toe of the
other, it was only by shuffling a few inches at a time that the task
was accomplished. Practice, however, soon made me more expert.
“It is not easy to give a correct idea of the prison which was
destined to be my dwelling place for the first year of my captivity.
Although it was between four and five o’clock on a bright sunny
afternoon, the rays of light only penetrated through the chinks and
cracks of the walls sufficiently to disclose the utter wretchedness
of all within. Some time elapsed before I could clearly distinguish
the objects by which I was surrounded. As my eyes gradually adapted
themselves to the dim light, I ascertained it to be a room about forty
feet long by thirty feet wide, the floor and sides made of strong
teak-wood planks, the former being raised two feet from the earth on
posts, which, according to the usual style of Burmese architecture,
ran through the body of the building, and supported the tiled roof as
well as the rafters for the floor and the planking of the walls. The
height of the walls from the floor was five or six feet, but the roof
being a sloping one, the centre might be double that height. It had no
window or aperture to admit light or air except a closely woven bamboo
wicket used as a door, and this was always kept closed. Fortunately,
the builders had not expended much labour on the walls, the planks of
which here and there were not very closely united, affording through
the chinks the only ventilation the apartment possessed, if we except
a hole near the roof where, either by accident or design, nearly a
foot in length of decayed plank had been torn off. This formed a
safety-valve for the escape of foul air to a certain extent; and, but
for this fortuitous circumstance, it is difficult to see how life could
have been long sustained.
“The only articles of furniture the place contained were these:--First
and most prominent, was a gigantic row of stocks similar in its
construction to that formerly used in England, dilapidated specimens
of which may still be seen in some of the market places of our country
towns. It was capable of accommodating more than a dozen occupants.
Several smaller varieties of the same species lay around, each holding
by the leg a pair of hapless victims consigned to its custody. These
stocks were heavy logs of timber bored with holes to admit the feet
and fitted with wooden pins to hold them fast. In the centre of the
apartment was placed a tripod holding a large earthen cup filled with
earth oil to be used as a lamp during the night watches; and lastly, a
simple but suspicious looking piece of machinery, whose painful uses
it was my fate to test before many hours had elapsed. It was merely a
long bamboo suspended from the roof by a rope at each end and worked by
blocks or pulleys to raise or depress it at pleasure.
“The prison had never been washed, nor even swept, since it was built.
So I was told, and I have no doubt it was true, for, besides the ocular
proof from its present condition, it is certain no attempt was made to
cleanse it during my subsequent tenancy of eleven months. This gave a
kind of fixedness or permanency to the fetid odours, until the very
floors and walls were saturated with them. Putrid remains of castaway
animal and vegetable stuff which needed no broom to make it ‘move
on’--the stale fumes from thousands of tobacco pipes--the scattered
ejections of the pulp and liquid from their everlasting betel, and
other nameless abominations still more disgusting, which strewed the
floor--and if to this be added the exudation from the bodies of a crowd
of never-washed convicts, encouraged by the thermometer at 100 degrees,
in a den almost without ventilation--is it possible to say what it
smelled like? As might have been expected from such a state of things,
the place was teeming with creeping vermin to an extent that very soon
reconciled me to the plunder of the greater portion of my dress.
“When night came on, the ‘father’ of the establishment, entering,
stalked towards our corner. The meaning of the bamboo now became
apparent. It was passed between the legs of each individual and when it
had threaded our number, seven in all, a man at each end hoisted it up
by the blocks to a height which allowed our shoulders to rest on the
ground while our feet depended from the iron rings of the fetters. The
adjustment of the height was left to the judgment of our kind-hearted
parent, who stood by to see that it was not high enough to endanger
life nor low enough to exempt from pain. Having settled this point to
his satisfaction, the venerable chief proceeded with a staff to count
the number of the captives, bestowing a smart rap on the head to those
he disliked, whom he made over to the savage with a significant hint of
what he might expect if the agreed tally were not forthcoming when the
wicket opened the next morning. He then took his leave, kindly wishing
us a good night’s rest, for the old wretch could be facetious; the
young savage trimmed his lamp, lighted his pipe, did the same act of
courtesy to all who wished to smoke, and the anxious community, one by
one, sought a short oblivion to their griefs in sleep.
“In vain, however, did our little party court that blessing; passing by
the torment of thought, the sufferings of the body alone were enough to
prevent it. I had youth on my side, and my slender frame enabled me to
bear the suspension better than my fellow sufferers. The tobacco smoke
was a mercy, for it robbed the infliction of half its torment. A year
afterward, when we had to undergo a punishment somewhat similar, though
in a purer atmosphere, we found the sting of the mosquitos, on the
soles of our undefended feet, ‘without the power to scare away’ these
venomous little insects, was intolerable; whereas in this well-smoked
apartment a mosquito could not live. We were not aware at the time
what a happy exemption this was. What a night was that on which we
now entered! Death, in its most appalling form, perhaps attended with
the agony of unknown tortures, was thought by all to be our certain
lot. Kewet-nee, who occupied the next place on the bamboo, excited a
horrible interest by the relation of a variety of exquisite tortures
which he had known to be perpetrated under that roof.
“The rays of the morning sun now began to struggle through the chinks
of the prison walls and told us that day dawned, bringing life and
happiness to the world outside, but only the consciousness of misery to
all within. The prisoners being counted and found to tally correctly
with the reckoning of overnight, symptoms of the routine of the day
began to attract attention. Our considerate parent made his appearance
and with his customary grin lowered down the bamboo to within a foot of
the floor, to the great relief of our benumbed limbs in which the blood
slowly began again to circulate. At eight o’clock the inmates were
driven out in gangs of ten or twelve at a time, to take the air for
five minutes, when they were huddled in again, to make way for others;
but no entreaty could secure a repetition of the same favour that day,
though a bribe, which few could promise, might effect it. Fresh air,
the cheapest of all the gifts of Providence, was a close monopoly in
the hands of the ‘sons of the prison,’ who sold it at the highest
price, and with a niggard hand.
“After breakfast the business of trying the prisoners began, and
each was brought in turn before the _myo-serai_, or assistant to the
governor. The first was a young man accused of being concerned in the
robbery of the house of a person of rank. Whether the accusation was
well founded or not I had no means of judging except by the result; but
certainly the man had not the appearance of a robber. As a matter of
course, he denied the crime; but denial was assumed to be obstinacy,
and the usual mode of overcoming obstinacy was by some manner of
torture. By order of the _myo-serai_, therefore, he was made to sit
upon a low stool, his legs were bound together by a cord above the
knees and two poles inserted between them by the executioners, one of
whom took the command of each pole, the ground forming the fulcrum.
With these the legs were forced upwards and downwards and asunder, and
underwent a peculiar kind of grinding, inflicting more or less pain as
the judge gave direction. Every moment I expected to hear the thighbone
snap. The poor fellow sustained this torture with loud cries but still
with firmness until the agony became so intense that he fainted. ‘The
tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’ To restore animation they
resorted to cold water and shampooing. Thus revived, he was again
thrust back into his den with menaces of fresh torture on the morrow,
as no confession had yet been wrung from him. I may as well finish the
revolting story at once.
“True to his word, the _myo-serai_ returned the next day to renew his
diabolical practices. This time the culprit was tied by the wrists
behind his back, the rope which bound them being drawn by a pulley just
high enough to allow his toes to touch the ground, and in this manner
he was left until he should become more reasonable. At length, under
the pressure of agonising pain, just in time to save the dislocation
of the shoulder, the criminal made his confession and criminated two
respectable persons as accomplices. From what followed I presume this
was all that was wanted. The man of justice had now two men in his
toils who were able to pay. The unfortunate man, who, when relieved
from the pain of the torture, acknowledged he had accused innocent
people, was returned to gaol fearfully mangled and maimed; but instead
of meeting a felon’s fate, when time had been given to fleece the two
victims, he was released.
“Within the walls nothing worthy of notice occurred until the hour of
three in the afternoon. As this hour approached, we noticed that the
talking and jesting of the community gradually died away. All seemed
to be under the influence of some powerful restraint, until that fatal
hour was announced by the deep tones of a powerful gong suspended in
the palace yard, and a deathlike silence prevailed. If a word was
spoken it was in a whisper. It seemed as though even breathing were
suspended under the control of a panic terror, too deep for expression,
which pervaded every bosom. We did not long remain in ignorance of the
cause. If any of the prisoners were to suffer death that day, the
hour of three was that at which they were taken out for execution.
The manner of it was the acme of cold-blooded cruelty. The hour was
scarcely told by the gong when the wicket opened, and the hideous
figure of a spotted man appeared, who, without uttering a word, walked
straight to his victim now for the first time probably made acquainted
with his doom. As many of these unfortunate people knew no more than
ourselves the fate that awaited them, this mystery was terrible and
agonising; each one fearing, up to the last moment, that the stride
of the Spot might be directed his way. When the culprit disappeared
with his conductor and the prison door closed behind them, those who
remained began again to breathe more freely; for another day, at least,
their lives were safe.
“It is not my intention to make this narrative a chronicle of all
the diabolical cruelties in this den of abominations, but the first
specimen which greeted our eyes on the morrow may serve as a fair
sample of the practices which it was our fate to behold almost daily.
The routine was generally this:--The magistrate takes his seat in the
front of the shed in which we occupy the background, as though the
spot had been selected for our convenience, as spectators to behold an
amusing exhibition. A criminal is now summoned from the interior. He
hobbles out and squats down in terror before the judge; the crime of
which he is accused is stated to him. He denies it; he is urged by
various motives to confess his guilt; perhaps he knows that confession
is only another word for execution; therefore he still denies. The
magistrate assumes an air of indignation at his obstinacy and now
begins the work of his tormentor, the man with the ringed cheek who has
hitherto stood by waiting the word of command. He has many means at his
disposal, but the one selected for the present instance was a short
iron maul. It would simply excite disgust were I to enter into detail.
Suffice it to say that after writhing and rolling on the ground and
screaming with agony for nearly half an hour, the unfortunate wretch
was assisted to his den, a mass of wounds and bruises pitiable to
behold, leaving his judge not a whit the wiser.
“By degrees we settled down into the habits of the prison and were
becoming familiar with such scenes as I have recounted. We began also
to speculate on the length of time nature could hold out, if we were
left to test it. How long could we live in such a plight without the
use of water or other means of cleanliness? Would habit reconcile us to
it as it apparently had done many of our fellow prisoners? Some of them
had lived there for years. We gradually became acquainted with them
and with their crimes, real or imputed. There were many cases in the
calendar that were almost incredible and showed that accident, caprice,
superstition and even carelessness occasioned their confinement. One
grimy, half-starved old man had been kept there three years and neither
knew why he was there nor who sent him. The crime of another must have
been that of a madman, or more probably it was a false accusation,
preferred to gratify private revenge. He was said to have made an
image of the king and to have walked over it. The mere imputation of
practising necromancy against the sacred person of the king was a fatal
charge. The poor fellow was taken from among us at the hour of midnight
and despatched by breaking his spine. Why this singular method of
slaughter was resorted to, as well as the manner of carrying it into
execution, was as mysterious as the crime itself; they were not at
all particular as to the mode of depriving their victims of life, but
seemed to be guided altogether by caprice.
“The plan of the prison yard shows that there were a number of small
cells used by the ringed brotherhood, and the pleading of our amiable
protectress secured for us the liberty to occupy them. It is true they
were very small, the one I inhabited being about five feet wide with
just enough length to lie down in; it was so low that I could not stand
upright except in the middle where the roof was highest; but it was
Elysium when compared with the suffocating choke of the inner prison.
Nor could it be called altogether solitary confinement, for one of
our gaolers had a pretty daughter about sixteen years old, who took
a wonderful fancy to me and was a frequent visitor in my cell. She
supplied me, too, with an unspeakable luxury, water for ablution. Oh,
who can appreciate the gift but those who have been long deprived of
it? A scrap of rag, moistened with some of the water given us to drink,
only served to smear the grime like a plaster over our bodies. Now,
once again I could call myself comparatively clean. My cell had other
advantages. My eyes escaped many scenes of revolting cruelty; my ears,
many foul anathemas and gross abuse; my lungs and olfactories, all
sorts of abominations. The chief loss was the society of my friends.
The rats, too, were numerous and troublesome at first; but these,
though a disgusting nuisance, I managed to turn to account by the fancy
of the _pahquets_ for their flesh. The Burmese hold rats in about
the same estimation as we do hares, and sell them commonly in their
markets for about their own weight in lead. My cell, therefore, might
be regarded as a well-stocked preserve for game. The burrows ran in all
directions, and hardly a day passed without my bagging a few heads of
this novel kind of game and handing them over to my pretty visitor’s
father, who willingly lent me his spear for the purpose of destroying
them. The bait of a few grains of boiled rice at the entrance of the
burrows brought them out in shoals and gave me the opportunity of
spearing them. ‘What do you expect will be your fate?’ said this pious
Buddhist as he once took the struggling vermin from the spear, ‘when
the time comes for me to serve you as you are serving that creature?’
They all looked forward to the pleasure of decapitating us, and when in
a mild humour would promise me as a favour, to use their greatest skill
so that I should scarcely feel it. What a consoling thought!
“Shut up close in my little cell, I thought that at all events my
feelings would no longer be harrowed with the sight of deeds of blood.
To a certain extent it was so; but even here there was no abiding peace
and quietness. One night as I was vainly endeavouring to coax myself
asleep, the screams of an unfortunate wretch in the inner prison fell
upon my ear, and the door of my cell being at the time unfastened and
the prison wall not more than three feet off, curiosity prompted me
to peep through a crack to see what fresh mischief was on foot. Never
shall I forget the foul assassination I witnessed. The inmates were
breathlessly silent, evidently expecting some evil. The cries proceeded
from a young man who lay stretched on the floor with his feet in the
stocks. The lamp was burning dimly, giving just enough light to show
the form of a grim _pahquet_ striding toward his victim. Without a
word, he stamped several times on the mouth of the youth with his heavy
wooden shoes with a force which must have broken his teeth and jaws
into fragments. From my hiding place, where I stood trembling with
terror, I heard the bones crack and crash. Still the cries were not
altogether silenced, when the monster seized the club of the savage,
and with repeated blows on the body and head pounded the poor sufferer
to death. The corpse was then taken from the stocks and buried in the
prison yard.
“Now news came of the defeat of the Burmese troops in the field, and
the governor wreaked his vengeance on us. We were all hustled again
from our cells into the inner prison, to await any fresh orders that
might be issued from the palace. A merciful Providence again averted
the danger. For a few days, probably a week, we were kept in the old
den of corruption, when time, as before, softened down asperities,
the rage of the governor and of our keepers began to evaporate, and
a little renewed coaxing, backed by such insignificant bribes as our
people could yet afford to pay, regained for us the favour of the cells
in which we were once more installed, and my war of extermination
against the rats recommenced.
“While we were passing this week in the inner prison, a frightful
event took place, which threatened the immediate destruction of
the whole community; indeed, it is wonderful that the instinct of
self-preservation did not deter our parent of the prison from executing
his order. A woman was brought in covered with the pustules of the
small-pox. Our doctor looked aghast and so did we all, as well we
might. It was a case quite beyond his treatment, though it is strange
the versatile doctor did not undertake the cure. Even the Burmese
prisoners themselves expressed their astonishment, but remonstrance
was useless. The gaolers, however, showed a little common sense by
placing the unfortunate creature in a clear spot by herself to avoid
contact with the other inmates of the prison, with delicate threats
of punishment if she moved from it. We never heard what induced this
barbarity, but she was most likely suffering for the misconduct of some
relative in the war, and the authority who sent her there could not
have been aware of the disease, for she had not been among us more than
twenty-four hours when she was again taken away.
“But by what means was infection averted? Inoculation or vaccination
was unknown. Here were about fifty persons living in the same confined
room without ventilation, and yet not one of them took the disease. The
fact seems almost miraculous, and I should have doubted the nature of
the malady had it not been acknowledged and dreaded by everyone, the
natives as well as ourselves. I can only account for our immunity by
the free use of tobacco.
“After an engagement with the British troops, many were taken prisoners
and were brought to the prison. Unfortunately, it so happened that one
of the freaks, already noticed as common to the gaolers, had at this
time consigned all our party to the inner prison, and we beheld with
horror about a hundred of these men step one after another through
the wicket into our already well-filled prison, one of the ringed
fraternity remaining inside to see that they were packed as close as
possible. The floor was literally paved with human beings, one touching
and almost overlapping the other on every side. It soon became evident
what must follow. Difficulty in breathing, profuse perspiration and
other disagreeables, overcame the natural terror of their tormentors,
and the suffering multitude began to cry aloud for air and water.
The horrors of the notorious ‘black hole of Calcutta’ must have been
reënacted had the building been of brick, but the manner of its
construction, before explained, fortunately prevented it. At length the
clamour of the captives, working probably on the fears of the gaolers
themselves, induced them to open the wicket door for the night, some of
their number keeping ward outside as sentinels. By this means a general
disaster was avoided.
“This temporary influx of prisoners was the cause of greater anxiety
to me than to my companions from a peculiar circumstance. The stock
of fetters in the establishment ran short, and to provide for this
unexpected demand our three pairs of fetters were taken off for the
night, one ring only being left on the ankle, and by this we were
chained one to another, two by two, like hounds in couples, only by the
leg instead of the neck. Perhaps the reader may think this was, at all
events, a slight respite, for which we ought to have been thankful. So
it was, to all except myself, for the luxury of being able once more
to stretch the legs apart was, no doubt, a most grateful refreshment.
But--my flesh creeps when I think of it--I was chained to a leper.
My companion was an unfortunate Greek, whose ankles had by this time
broken out into unmistakable open leprous sores, with which a few
inches of chain alone prevented contact, while at the same time it kept
me in terrible proximity. The chain was kept at its full length all
night, as may be supposed, and sundry nervous jerkings from time to
time on my part to assure myself that it was so, indicated the nature
of my alarm to the poor man, who was not unconscious of his malady,
though he would not openly admit it. He grew irritated at my studied
avoidance of him, and raised the question himself only to deny it. This
voluntary allusion to it by himself, notwithstanding his denial, only
tended to confirm the fact. With what joy did I submit myself the next
day to the hands of my worthy parent, while he again invested me with
my wonted complement of irons. With what anxiety, too, did I watch for
weeks, searching diligently my ankles for the first symptoms of the
contagion, fearing I might unwittingly have rubbed against the infected
man and become inoculated with his loathsome disease. Happily I escaped
without accident.”
This horrible imprisonment was protracted into the sultry months of
March and April, and the wretched sufferers were left throughout
heavily laden with five pairs of fetters in a gloomy filthy dungeon,
without air or light, or even water to wash their fevered bodies,
constantly associated with the worst felons and sharing their dreadful
expectation to be taken out and executed. Finally, as the relieving
army approached, they were removed from Ava further into the country,
and the scene changed for the better as regards personal treatment.
The prisoners had at least fresh air, freedom from vermin, lighter
chains, water to wash in, exercise in the yard when their wounded feet
were sufficiently healed to allow them to walk, and as much comfort
as possible in a Burmese prison. But fresh terrors were caused by
the importation of a huge lioness into the prison enclosure. It was
confined in a strong cage, but was kept in a state of constant fury
and grew more and more ferocious, being kept continually without food.
The luckless prisoners began to believe that they were to be thrown as
a prey to the wild beast, but it grew visibly weaker and weaker and
presently died of starvation. The reason for shutting up the lioness
with the human victims of the terrified king was never explained.
Meanwhile the British troops pressed on and threatened shortly to
capture the capital by storm. The last and most terrible ordeal of all
was now impending. It was openly announced that the white prisoners
were to be sacrificed to save the king by being buried alive before
the broken and dispirited Burmese army. But another decisive battle
intervened, the prisoners were hastily released from gaol and carried
to Ava, whence they were borne by water to meet the British flotilla on
its way up stream, and the painful captivity was at an end.
The penal code of old Burmah in the pre-English days was primitive and
of ancient origin, being based largely upon the laws first promulgated
by Menu. Trial by ordeal was a very general rule, and many forms were
similar to those obtaining in other parts of the world. One was to
plunge a finger wrapped in a thin palm leaf into molten tin; again,
accused and accuser were immersed under water and the case was won by
the party who could remain the longest time below. Or two candles made
of equal portions of wax, carefully weighed, were lighted by the two
litigants, and the one which burned longest was adjudged to have won.
“In the Indies,” says one old authority, “when one man accuses another
of a crime punishable by death, it is customary to ask the accused if
he is willing to go through trial by fire, and if he answers in the
affirmative, they heat a piece of iron till it is red hot; then he is
told to put his hand on the hot iron, and his hand is afterward wrapped
up in a bay leaf, and if at the end of three days he has suffered no
hurt he is declared innocent and delivered from the punishment which
threatened him. Sometimes they boil water in a cauldron till it is
so hot no one may approach it; then an iron ring is thrown into it
and the person accused is ordered to thrust in his hand and bring up
the ring, and if he does so without injury he is declared innocent.
Sometimes an iron chain or ball is used instead of the ring. Sometimes
a vessel of oil is heated, and a cocoanut is thrown in to test the
temperature, and if it cracks, then the suspected person may prove
his innocence by taking copper coins out of the boiling oil.” Another
ordeal was to take the accused to the tomb of a Mohammedan saint and
walk past, having first loaded him with heavy fetters. If the fetters
fall off, he is declared to be clear. “I have heard it said,” is the
comment of one authority who had little confidence in the good faith
of the tribunal, “that by some artful contrivance the fetters are so
applied as to fall off at a particular juncture.”
The rich expiated any offence by the payment of a fine, while the
impecunious suffered imprisonment, stripes with a rattan, mutilation,
endless slavery, and in the extreme case, death. The sentence to
slavery extended to all a man’s belongings and to his descendants
forever. Capital punishment was performed by decapitation, and a
fiendish executioner often prolonged the agony of the condemned
convict. To throw a victim to be devoured by wild beasts or trodden to
death by elephants was a practice only surrendered in recent times. In
the northern provinces crucifixion was common, but the instrument was
not in the shape of an ordinary cross. It was more like a double ladder
consisting of three upright bamboos crossed by three horizontal bars,
and upon these two more were laid in the shape of a St. Andrew’s cross.
Three scaffolds were commonly erected on river banks or on sand banks
in the stream, and were constantly seen on the Irrawady. Sometimes the
culprit was killed before he was affixed to the cross; sometimes he was
tied up and rendered helpless by a few spear thrusts, or disembowelled
by a sword cut across the stomach. In any case, the body was left
suspended until the flesh was pecked off by vultures and the bones fell
off by decay. When the mouths of the Irrawady were Burmese territory,
the criminal was lashed to a tree stump at low water and left to be
drowned by the incoming tide. The fishes, more voracious than the
vultures, were often more expeditious than the sea and ate their prey
alive. The tree, one of the undeveloped growth in the mangrove swamps,
was familiarly known as the “stump of hell.”
Imprisonment, as we have seen from the previous pages, was often
worse than death. But there might be some relaxation of durance.
With money a prisoner might appease his gaolers. He could by payment
secure release daily to go home, eat his meals and pass his time in
comfortable idleness, provided he came punctually back at night and
allowed himself to be again incarcerated. Nevertheless, the friendless
and impecunious preferred to suffer a public flogging, inflicted on the
culprit at all the street corners. Bribery and corruption, buying ease
from dishonest gaolers, speedily disappeared under the British rule.
An equable uniform system has been adopted for all prisoners, and the
demeanour of even the worst is outwardly quiet. They are for the most
part irreclaimable gaol-birds, with all the traits and characteristics
of the congenital criminal.
The predatory instinct predominates in the character of the Burman. He
is consumed with a desire to lay violent hands upon his neighbours’
goods and possessions. He is a Dacoit, a thief and highwayman by
inheritance. One who knew Burmah intimately was convinced that the evil
propensity was inborn in every Burmese child, and was stimulated as he
grew up by Dacoit stories. The example of others who had taken to the
business and become famous for enterprising raids, was always before
the youth of every generation. It was no disgrace to a young fellow
to be concerned in a Dacoity attack upon a neighbouring village, but
very much the reverse, and the most successful robbers were generally
treated with much consideration and respect.
A Dacoit band for the most part numbered five or six; they were not all
armed with firearms, but they fired a few shots on making a descent
to give warning of their approach, and no resistance was offered as
they swooped down with loud shouts and much waving of swords. Ransom
was demanded or the village, if deserted, was looted, and the Dacoits
fled before the outrage became known to the police. Then pursuit was
organised, but was generally fruitless. The Dacoits were close at hand,
in the very village, and might be easily seized, but no one would give
information, as that would be deemed an unpardonable offence. To betray
an offender into the hands of justice is a sin against religion much
more than against morality. There is the utmost difficulty, therefore,
in tracing crime in Burmah. British police officers were driven to
death in ceaseless efforts to catch Dacoits, hunting them perpetually
for months and months and seldom, if ever, laying hands on a single
offender.
Summary vengeance was meted out to “informers.” On one occasion, a
well-to-do villager in Lower Burmah had assisted in the capture of a
notorious Dacoit. Some of the prisoner’s friends, without waiting for
the issue of the trial, visited the traitor’s house and upbraided him
with being the cause of the Dacoit’s apprehension. “We mean to punish
you for this,” they said. “You shall be burned alive; which do you
prefer, that the fire should be lighted here in your own house, or
outside the village?” His wife offered a thousand rupees to buy him
off, but it was sternly refused, and he was forthwith put to death. In
another instance, a man who received a reward for securing the arrest
of a band was obliged to surrender the money to other Dacoits, who
called him to account, and to prevent his repeating the offence, his
head was cut off and exhibited on a pole.
Dacoity, when the complete pacification of Burmah was so long delayed,
became the last form of resistance of the people. The one time thieves
were promoted into rebels and insurgents. The Burmese did not all
accept British rule very willingly, and the government resolved to
finally crush opposition by exterminating the dissidents under the name
of Dacoity. Many serious encounters, costly in human life, were fought;
many leaders of small bands long evaded pursuit and gave much trouble.
But vigorous measures persistently carried out gradually put down all
opposition, and the most active Dacoits ended on the gallows or found
their way to prison or to the penal settlements. A good picture has
been preserved of one prominent Dacoit who had long ravaged the country
and been guilty of many crimes; and upon whom a sentence of penal
servitude for life was at length passed. “A small, spare, thin-visaged
man, whose features have nothing in them that would bear out his
character of a cruel ruffian and leader of men ... yet such was the
power of his name that a sum large enough to be a fortune to any three
natives was offered to whoever should kill or capture him, before his
career was checked.” Every gaol in Burmah has its complement of such
life convicts, reckless desperadoes, a source of constant anxiety to
those in charge of them.
To follow this man on his reception and through his treatment will give
a good idea of prison life in Burmah. His clothing was first issued to
him; a loin cloth of coarse brown stuff and a strip of sacking to serve
as his bed. His hair was close cut and his head was as smooth as the
palm of his hand, save for one small tuft left on the crown; his name
was registered in the great book, and he was led to the blacksmith’s
shop, where his leg irons were riveted on him, anklets in the form of
a heavy ring to which a connecting ring with two straight iron bars
was attached. At the same time a neck ring of iron as thick as a lead
pencil was welded on, with a plate attached, nine inches by five, on
which a paper recording the personal description of the individual
was pasted. This was called the _thimbone_, and its adoption became
necessary through the frauds practised by the convicts.
At one time every new arrival was given a tin medal stamped with his
number, which was hung round his neck with a string. But it was found
that these records were frequently exchanged among the prisoners. A
prisoner sentenced to a long term often assumed the identity of a
short term convict, who accepted the more irksome penalty for a money
consideration. At the present time, with the irremovable _thimbone_,
these exchanges are rendered impossible. It is strange that such a
simple process of preserving identities is not enforced in Siberia,
where Russian convicts have long made a practice of fraudulent
exchanges.
“If there is a type of revolting human ugliness, it is the Burmese
gaol-bird,” says the same authority, “with his shaven head and the
unmistakable stamp of criminal on his vicious face. All convicts
seem to acquire that look of low, half-defiant cunning from their
associates, and a physiognomist would not hesitate to describe
nine-tenths of the men before us as bad characters if he saw them in
any society. Many of this gang are Dacoits, and their breasts, arms
and necks are picture galleries of tattooed devices, fondly cherished
by the owners as charms against death or capture. Some have rows of
unsightly warts, like large peas, upon the breast and arms which mark
the spots where the charms have been inserted,--scraps of metal and
other substances inscribed with spells known only to the wise men who
deal in such things. One or two natives of India are amongst the gang,
and these are conspicuous by the absence of the tattooing universally
found on the Burman’s thighs. A powerfully built convict at the end of
the rank, in addition to the usual irons, has his ankle rings connected
by a single straight bar, so that he can only stand with his feet
twelve inches apart. ‘Look at that fellow,’ says the superintendent;
‘he is in for five years, and his time would have been up in three
months. A week ago he was down at the creek with his gang working
timber, and must needs try to escape. He was up to his waist in water
and dived under a raft, coming to the surface a good fifty yards down
the stream. The guard never missed him until a shout from another man
drew their attention, when they saw him swimming as hard as he could
go, irons and all, towards a patch of jungle on the opposite side.’
Amongst a repulsive horde this man would take first place without
competition. ‘Reckless scoundrel,’ is written on every line of his
scowling face, and such he undoubtedly is. After the severe flogging
his attempted escape earned for him, he assaulted and bit his guards
and fellow prisoners, and the bar between his anklets was the immediate
result.
“Conspiracies to break out are not uncommon, although they are
seldom matured, owing to the system of never allowing one batch of
men to remain together for more than a night or two in succession. A
determined attempt to ‘break gaol’ took place in the great central
prison at Rangoon a few years ago, resulting in a stand-up fight
between warders and convicts. Some twenty ‘lifers’ confined in a large
stone cell, whose gate opened upon their workyard, were the culprits.
The hammers and road metal which provided their daily labour were kept
in this yard, and the first aim of the convicts was to obtain access
to the shed where these weapons lay. About midnight the attention of
the sentry was called to the illness of one of the occupants of the
cell by another man, who was apparently the only wakeful member of
the gang besides the sham invalid. A Madrassee apothecary was called
to the grated window of the den, and obtained sufficient information
to enable him to prepare some remedy. On his return with the potion,
seeing that all the convicts were sound asleep, he did not attempt to
give the medicine to the sick man through the window, but against the
rules caused the guard to open the gate intending to take it into the
cell himself. The instant the gate was opened, the slumbering convicts
sprang to their feet, rushed at the apothecary and knocked him down in
such a position that his recumbent form effectually prevented the guard
behind from closing it. They quickly made their way into the workshed,
and arming themselves with hammers and stones, prepared to resist the
warders who had been attracted by the noise and the shouts of a sentry
on the wall. A furious conflict now ensued between the warders, big,
muscular Punjabees armed with heavy cudgels, and the convicts with
their extemporised weapons. The warders were reinforced until both
parties were fairly matched, and the rough and tumble fight in the dark
progressed amid extraordinary confusion. The workyard was overlooked by
two huge wings of the gaol in which a large number of prisoners were
confined; these men, roused to a frantic pitch of excitement by the
uproar below, dashed about their wards like caged animals with screams
and yells of encouragement to their fellows; while the sentries in
the watch towers on the main wall kept up a desultory fire in the air
to prove to the convicts the impossibility of escaping, even if they
should succeed in scaling the high spiked iron railing of their yard.
“The combatants fought hand-to-hand for some time, neither side gaining
any advantage, whilst above the roar of human voices and the sickening
crash of heavy clubs on the convicts’ shaven skulls the alarm bell
clashed out warning that military assistance from the distant barracks
was required. Warders had been summoned from all parts of the gaol,
and a general outbreak seemed imminent when the appearance of the
superintendent with a revolver suddenly decided matters. Panic seized
the convicts; they dropped their weapons with one accord and crowded
back into the cell, leaving two of their number dead in the yard. It
would be impossible to conceive a more ghastly sight than that row
of naked, trembling convicts as the warders now ranged them in the
vault-like den to be counted. The dim light of oil-lanterns fell upon
upturned faces, before repulsive enough, but now positively startling
in their hideous disfigurement of dust and clotting blood. Every man
was streaming with blood from wounds about the head, more or less
severe, for the convicts had fought with the desperation of men to whom
success meant liberty. They were doomed to drag out their lives in
that earthly hell; a flogging was the worst that could happen to them
if their attempt failed, possible freedom the reward if it succeeded.
Who would not risk the first for the slenderest chance of the second?
They took the risk and fate had gone against them. The excitement was
over, and they huddled together against the wall of the cell in an
agony of fear for the consequences their night’s work would bring upon
them to-morrow, staring enviously at those whose wounds necessitated
their removal to hospital. For them, at least, a few days’ reprieve was
certain before they suffered lash and punishment drill.”
PRISONS OF CHINA