CRIME IN CHINA
Great cruelty in the administration of the law in China--Experience
of Lord Loch--Iron collar, chains and creeping vermin--Earth
maggot--The “Ling che,” a slow ignominious death--Internal
arrangement of prisons--Whole families detained as hostages
for fugitive offenders--Mortality large; dead-house always
full--Military guard--Public flogging of thieves--The “Cangue”
or heavy wooden collar--Six classes of punishment--Method of
infliction--Chinese punishment in the seventeenth century--Some
cruel practices of to-day.
According to Chinese law, theoretically, no prisoner is punished until
he confesses his crime. He is therefore proved guilty and then by
torture made to acknowledge the accuracy of the verdict. The cruelty
shown to witnesses as well as culprits is a distinct blot on the
administration of justice in China. The penal code is ferocious, the
punishments inflicted are fiendishly cruel, and the prisons’ pig-stys
in which torture is hardly more deadly than the diseases engendered
by the most abominable neglect. The commonest notions of justice and
fair play are continually ignored. The story is told of a wretched
old man who had been detained years in the filthy prison of Peking,
dragging out a weary existence in the company of criminals of the
worst description. According to his own account, he had been living on
his land with his wife and family. One night he took out his gun to
scare crows and trespassers off his ripening crops, in the execution
of which innocent design he let off his weapon two or three times. On
the following day a man was found murdered on the far confines of his
land. Immediately he was apprehended, not as one might suppose, to
give evidence or relate what he knew, but to be made to confess that
he himself was the author of the crime. To extort this confession he
was cruelly and repeatedly tortured. “Of course,” he said, “I shall
never leave this prison alive, for they will keep me here until,
reduced to the last extremity by torture, I confess myself guilty of
a crime of which I am entirely innocent, and when I do confess they
will cut off my head on the strength of that confession.” This is
founded on unimpeachable fact, and the case is constantly recurring
under different forms. “In China it is not the prosecution who prove
a prisoner guilty, but the prisoner who has to prove that he is not
guilty.” In this same prison of Peking a visitor once was permitted to
enter a chamber in which was a barred cage eight feet by eight, and in
it twenty-six human beings were incarcerated, of whom six were dying
of gaol fever. He asked that they might be taken out of the cage “in
order that he might medically examine and if possible relieve them.
The gaoler opened the door of the cage and seizing the six by their
pig-tails, or by any other portion of their bodies that happened to
present itself, dragged them out one by one over the pavement into
the courtyard outside. No doubt several of these men were innocent
of the crimes imputed to them and were waiting to be tortured into a
confession of guilt.”
Few Europeans have experienced imprisonment in China. One Englishman,
Lord Loch, has given an account of the sufferings he endured when
treacherously captured during the war of 1860. “The discipline of
the prison was not in itself very strict and had it not been for the
starvation, the pain arising from the cramped position in which the
chains and ropes retained the arms and legs, with the heavy drag of
the iron collar on the bones of the spine, and the creeping vermin
that infested every place, together with the occasional beatings and
tortures which the prisoners were from time to time taken away for a
few hours to endure, returning with bleeding legs and bodies and so
weak as to be scarcely able to crawl, there was no very great hardship
to be endured.... There was a small maggot which appears to infest all
Chinese prisons: the earth at a depth of a few inches swarms with them;
they are the scourge most dreaded by every poor prisoner. Few enter
a Chinese prison who have not on their bodies or limbs some wounds,
either inflicted by blows to which they have been subjected, or caused
by the manner in which they have been bound; the instinct of the insect
to which I allude appears to lead them direct to these wounds. Bound
and helpless, the poor wretch cannot save himself from their approach,
although he knows full well that if they once succeed in reaching his
lacerated skin, there is the certainty of a fearful lingering and
agonising death before him.”
Punishment varies in cruelty and intensity with the crime; for the
murder of a father, mother, or several people of one family the
sentence is “ignominious and slow death.” This method is known as _ling
che_, and the victim is attached to a post and cut to pieces by slow
degrees, the pieces being thrown about among the crowd. This cruel
death was more than once publicly inflicted in Peking during the year
1903. Some of the most horrible passages in the _Peking Gazette_ are
those which announce the infliction of this awful punishment on madmen
and idiots who in sudden outbreaks of mania have committed parricide.
For this offence no infirmity is accepted, even as a palliation. A
culprit condemned to _ling che_ is tied to a cross, and while he is
yet alive gashes are made by the executioner on the fleshy parts of
his body, varying in number according to the disposition of the judge.
When this part of the sentence has been carried out, a merciful blow
severs the head from the body. It is said that the executioner can be
bribed to put sufficient opium into the victim’s last meal to make
him practically unconscious, or even to inflict the fatal stab in the
heart at first, which should ordinarily be the last. Common cases of
capital punishment are comparatively merciful, for the executioners
are so skilful that they generally sever the head from the trunk with
one swift blow. The Chinese prefer death by strangulation to any other
form, because it enables the body to appear unmutilated in the next
world. This feeling has such a hold on them that when four victims were
decapitated in Peking, their relatives instantly claimed the bodies and
sewed on the heads. The permission to do this was regarded by them as a
great privilege and a mitigation of the sentence.
The prisons of China are made up of a certain number of wards according
to their class. Thus, for example, the prisons of the respective
counties of Nam-hoi and Pun-yu in the province of Kwang-tung, which
are first-class county prisons, consist (besides chambers in which
prisoners on remand are confined) of six large wards in each of which
are four large cells, making in all twenty-four cells. The same
arrangements may be said to prevail in all county prisons. The walls
of the various wards abut one upon another and form a parallelogram.
Round the outer wall a paved pathway runs upon which the gates of
the various wards open. This pathway is flanked by a large wall
which constitutes the boundary wall of the prison. The cells are of
considerable size. The four cells in each ward are arranged two on a
side so as to form the two sides of a square, and they much resemble
cattle sheds, the front of each being enclosed in a strong palisading
of wood which extends from the ground to the roof. They are paved
with granite, and each is furnished with a raised wooden platform on
which the prisoners sit by day and sleep by night. They are polluted
with vermin and filth of almost every kind, and the prisoners seldom
or never have an opportunity afforded them of washing their bodies
or even dressing their hair, as water in Chinese prisons is a scarce
commodity and hair-combs are almost unknown. The approach to the prison
is a narrow passage at the entrance of which there is an ordinary
sized door. Above this entrance door is painted a tiger’s head with
large staring eyes and widely extended jaws. Upon entering, the
visitor finds an altar on which stands the figure of a tiger hewn in
granite. This image is regarded as the tutelary deity of the prison
gates. The turnkeys worship it morning and evening, with the view of
propitiating it and securing its watchfulness, gaolers in China being
held responsible for the safe custody of the miserable beings who are
entrusted to their care. At the base of the large wall which forms the
prison boundary there are several hovels--for by no other name can they
be designated--in some of which all the female felons are lodged and in
others whole families who are held as witnesses by the mandarins.
There is a law which admits of the seizure and detention as hostages
of entire families, any members of which have broken the laws of the
empire and fled from justice. Such hostages are not liberated until
the offending relatives have been secured, and consequently they are
not unfrequently imprisoned during a period of five, ten or twenty
years. Indeed, many of them pass the period of their natural lives in
captivity. Thus the mother or aunt of Hung Sow-tsuen, the leader of
the Taiping rebellion, died after an imprisonment of several years
in the prison of the Nam-hoi magistrate at Canton. The unoffending
old woman grievously felt this long detention for no crime or offence
of her own. Should the crime of the fugitive be a very aggravated
and serious one, such, for example, as an attempt upon the life of
the sovereign of the empire, it is not unusual to put the immediate,
although perfectly innocent, relations of the offender to death, while
those who are not so nearly related to him are sent into exile. In 1803
an attempt was made to assassinate the emperor Ka-hing. The assassin
was no sooner apprehended than he was sentenced to be put to death by
torture; and his sons who were young children were put to death by
strangling. The mortality in Chinese prisons is very great. The bodies
of all who die in prison are thrown into the dead-house and remain
there until the necessary preliminaries, which are of a very simple
kind, have been arranged for their interment. In the prisons of Canton
these receptacles may be seen full of corpses and presenting the most
revolting and disgusting appearance. Some of the unhappy victims have
died from the effects of severe and often repeated floggings. Others
have fallen victims to one or other of the various diseases which such
dens are only too well fitted to create and foster. In the prison
of Pun-yu there were on one occasion in the dead-house five bodies,
all with the appearance of death from starvation--a form of capital
punishment which in China is frequently inflicted upon kidnappers and
other grave offenders. Directly in front of the door of the dead-house
and at the base of the outer boundary wall of the prison there is
a small door of sufficient size to admit of a corpse being passed
through. The corpses of all who die in prison are carried through this
aperture into the adjoining street for burial. It would be paying
too much reverence to the deceased prisoner to allow the remains to
be carried through the gates of the _yamun_ to which the prison is
attached.
In point of appearance the unfortunate inmates of Chinese prisons are
perhaps of all men the most abject and miserable. Their death-like
countenances, emaciated forms and long coarse black hair, which,
according to prison rules, they are not allowed to shave, give them
the appearance rather of demons than of men, and strike the mind of
the beholder with impressions of gloom and sorrow that are not easily
forgotten. Prisoners in every ward with one exception only wear
fetters. The exception is the prisoner who is supposed to be more
respectable and who conducts himself better than any of his fellows
in crime. He is allowed the full freedom of his limbs and as a mark
of confidence and trust the privilege is conferred upon him of acting
as overseer and guardian of his comrades. The dress worn by Chinese
prisoners consists of a coat and trousers of a coarse red fabric. On
the back of the coat is printed in large indelible characters the name
of the prison in which its wearer is confined so that should he escape
from durance he would at once be recognised as a runaway or prison
breaker, and his recapture facilitated. Each prison is presided over
by a governor who has under him a considerable number of turnkeys.
Thus each large prison in Canton has a governor, twenty-four turnkeys,
thirty-seven watchmen and fifteen spearmen. In a barrack beyond
the doors or gates of each prison is a resident guard of soldiers.
The turnkeys, watchmen, spearmen, and so forth, become the most
casehardened and incorrigible of the criminals from the great amount
of misery which they daily witness. The policemen who are attached to
the _yamun_ are also men of vile character, and it is unfortunately
too common for them to share the booty with the thief and hoodwink or
deceive the magistrate.
The governor of a Chinese prison purchases his appointment from
the local government. He receives no salary from the state and is
compelled, therefore, to recoup himself by exacting money from such
relatives or friends of prisoners as are in good circumstances and
naturally anxious that their unhappy friends should escape as far as
possible the sad deprivations and cruelties for which Chinese prisons
are so notorious. To each prison a granary is attached in which rice
of the cheapest and coarsest kind is stored by the governor. This rice
is one of his perquisites, and he retails it to the prisoners at a
remunerative price. Vegetables and firewood for culinary purposes, both
of which are daily offered for sale to the prisoners, are also supplied
by him. As the government daily allowance to each prisoner does not
exceed twenty-five _cash_, the prisoners who are without friends are
not often able to buy even vegetables and firewood.
Besides the prison in which convicts are confined there is also within
the precincts of the _yamun_ a house of detention. This is neither so
large nor so strongly enclosed as the common gaol. Generally, in such a
house of detention there is a large chamber which is set apart for the
reception of prisoners on remand, who have friends able and willing to
satisfy the demands of the governor. By this arrangement such prisoners
avoid the misery of being shut up in the same ward with men of the
vilest character and often most loathsome condition, covered with filth
or suffering from various kinds of cutaneous diseases. The arrangement
is a great advantage to the governor of the gaol and to all prisoners
who can afford to pay for it, but a great disadvantage to other
inmates. The space required for the convenience of prisoners who have
friends to look after their wants leaves very little room indeed for
the reception of the great majority of the poorer criminals, who are
huddled together in a common ward sometimes too crowded to allow its
occupants to lie down. In the city of Canton, on the streets adjoining
the _yamuns_, there are other houses of detention, all densely crowded.
Imprisonment is not the only penalty inflicted; cases of petty larceny
are generally dealt with by flogging. The culprit is handcuffed and
with the identical article which he stole, or one similar, suspended
from his neck, is marched through the streets of the neighbourhood in
which the theft was committed. He is preceded by a man beating a gong,
and at each beat of the gong an officer who walks behind gives him a
severe blow with a double rattan across the shoulders, exclaiming,
“This is the punishment due to a thief.” As the culprit has to pass
through three or four streets his punishment, although regarded by the
Chinese as a minor one, is certainly not lacking in severity, and is
often accompanied by a considerable flow of blood.
A thief who had stolen a watch from one of his countrymen was flogged
through the Honam suburb of Canton, but the officer appointed to
flog him was very corpulent, and from his great earnestness in the
discharge of his duty became quite breathless before the various
streets along which the culprit was sentenced to pass had been fully
traversed. The person from whom the watch had been stolen, seeing that
the thief might escape the full severity of his penalty, snatched the
double rattan from the hand of the exhausted officer and applied it
himself most unmercifully to the thief’s back. Women who are convicted
of thieving are in some instances punished in this way. Occasionally
a long bamboo is used in cases of petty larceny. When this is the
case, however, the culprit receives his flogging in court in front of
the tribunal. He is at once denuded of his trousers and the number of
blows varies according to the nature of the larceny, from ten to three
hundred.
Mr. Henry Norman, who witnessed a most cruel flogging in court, which
left the prisoner in a pitiable state, asserts that when a policeman
was called to suffer the same punishment, it was seen that he had
bound strips of wood on himself to catch the full force of the bamboo.
The prescribed number of strokes were administered, but the fraud was
plainly apparent to the magistrate and all the spectators, and the
policeman, who was none the worse for the flogging, went about his
duties as usual when the ordeal was over. Spectacles of this kind, says
the same authority, seem to be highly enjoyed by a Chinese audience.
_Chinese Punishment_
The _cangue_, or square and heavy wooden collar, is one of the
modes by which petty offenders are punished in China. The weight
varies with the offence, and they are worn from a fortnight to
three months, during which time the _cangue_ is not removed by
day or night. This device inflicts severe punishment, preventing
the culprit from assuming any position of rest. The name of the
prisoner and the nature of his offence are written on the _cangue_
in large letters, so that “he who runs may read,” and he is often
made to stand at one of the principal gates or in some other
conspicuous place as an object of universal contempt.
[Illustration]
The _cangue_, or square, heavy wooden collar, is another mode by which
petty offenders in China are punished. _Cangues_ vary in weight, some
being considerably larger and heavier than others. The period for which
an offender is sentenced to wear this collar varies from a fortnight
to three months. During the whole of this time the _cangue_ is not
removed from the neck of the prisoner either by day or by night. Its
form prevents the wearer from stretching himself on the ground at
full length, and to judge from the attenuated appearance of prisoners
who have undergone it, the punishment must be terribly severe. The
name of the lawbreaker and the nature of his offence are written on
the _cangue_ in large letters, “so that all the world may read.” The
authorities often make the victim stand from sunrise to sunset at
one of the principal gates or in front of one of the chief temples
or public halls of the city, where he is regarded as an object of
universal scorn and contempt.
Another mode of punishing a criminal is that of confining him in a
cage. The cages are of different forms, the worst being too short to
allow the occupants to place themselves in a recumbent position and too
low to admit of their standing. To the top of one kind is attached a
wooden collar or _cangue_ by which the neck of the criminal, which it
is made to fit, is firmly held. Another cage resembles the former in
all respects but one. The difference consists in its being higher than
its occupant, so that while his neck is held fast by the wooden collar
attached to the top of the cage, the tips of his toes barely touch the
floor. Indeed, the floor, which is only a few inches from the ground,
is sometimes removed so that the prisoner may be suspended by the neck.
This punishment almost invariably proves fatal. The victims are as a
rule thieves and robbers. They are often punished by being bound to
stones by means of long chains passed round their necks. The stones are
not large, but sufficiently heavy to inconvenience them as they walk
to and from the prison to the entrance gates of the _yamun_, in front
of which they are daily exposed. These stones are their inseparable
companions by night and by day throughout the whole period of their
incarceration. In some instances they are bound to long bars of iron
and are daily exposed to the scorn of all passers by.
For capital and other offences of a serious nature there are six
classes of punishment. The first, called _ling che_, has already been
mentioned. It is inflicted upon traitors, parricides, matricides,
fratricides and murderers of husbands, uncles and tutors. The criminal
is cut into either one hundred and twenty, seventy-two, thirty-six or
twenty-four pieces. Should there be extenuating circumstances, his
body, as a mark of imperial clemency, is divided into eight portions
only. The punishment of twenty-four cuts is inflicted as follows: the
first and second cuts remove the eyebrows; the third and fourth the
shoulders; the fifth and sixth the breasts; the seventh and eighth
the parts between each hand and elbow; the ninth and tenth the parts
between each elbow and shoulder; the eleventh and twelfth the flesh of
each thigh; the thirteenth and fourteenth the calf of each leg; the
fifteenth pierces the heart; the sixteenth severs the head from the
body; the seventeenth and eighteenth cut off the hands; the nineteenth
and twentieth the arms; the twenty-first and twenty-second the feet;
the twenty-third and twenty-fourth the legs. That of eight cuts is
inflicted as follows; the first and second cuts remove the eyebrows;
the third and fourth the shoulders; the fifth and sixth the breasts;
the seventh pierces the heart; the eighth severs the head from the
body. A great many political offenders underwent executions of the
first class at Canton during the vice-royalty of His Excellency, Yeh.
On the fourteenth day of December, 1864, the famous Hakka rebel leader,
Tai Chee-kwei by name, was put to death at Canton in the same manner.
The second class of capital punishment, which is called _chan_ or
decapitation, is the penalty due to murderers, rebels, pirates,
burglars, etc. Prisoners who are sentenced to decapitation are kept in
ignorance of the hour fixed for their execution until the preceding
day. Occasionally they have only a few hours’ and in some instances
only a few minutes’ warning. When the time has arrived for making
the condemned man ready for execution, an officer in full costume,
carrying in his hand a board on which is pasted a list of the names of
the prisoners who are that day to atone for their crimes, enters the
prison, and in the hearing of all the prisoners assembled in the ward,
reads aloud the list of the condemned. Each prisoner whose name is
called at once answers to it, and he is then made to sit in a basket
to be carried once more into the presence of a judge. As he is taken
through the outer gate, he is interrogated through an interpreter by an
official who acts on the occasion as the viceroy’s representative.
Mr. Henry Norman described in 1895 an execution of fifteen offenders
of this class which he had witnessed. The condemned were carried into
the place of execution in flat baskets suspended from bamboo poles, and
literally dumped out, bound hand and foot. A slip of paper was stuck
in the queue of each condemned man, which described the nature of the
crime. These were taken out and stacked up by one of the executioners,
and then the work of severing the heads began, one of the executioners
holding the victim’s shoulders while the other used the knife. All
of those about to be beheaded witnessed the decapitation of their
comrades, and the spectators yelled with delight and frenzy. When the
last head had been severed, the place was ankle-deep in blood and the
executioner, who used the knife, was covered with it. The bodies were
thrown into a pond and the heads were put in earthenware jars and
stacked up with others surrounding this potter’s field.
A third punishment is called _nam-kow_, or death by strangulation. This
is inflicted on kidnappers and all thieves who with violence steal
articles the value of which amounts to five hundred dollars and upward.
The manner in which this form of capital punishment is inflicted is as
follows:--A cross is erected in the centre of the execution ground, at
the foot of which a stone is placed, and upon this the prisoner stands.
His body is made fast to the perpendicular beam of the cross by a band
passing round the waist, while his arms are bound to the transverse
beam. The executioner then places round the neck of the prisoner a thin
but strong piece of twine, which he tightens to the utmost and then
ties in a firm knot round the upper part of the perpendicular beam.
Death by this cruel process is very slow and is apparently attended
with extreme agony. The body remains on the cross during a period of
twenty-four hours, the sheriff before leaving the execution ground
taking care to attach his seal to the knot of the twine which passes
round the neck of the malefactor.
The fourth class of punishment is called _man-kwan_, or transportation
for life. The criminals who are thus punished are embezzlers,
forgers, etc. The places of banishment in the north of China and
Tartary are named respectively Hack-loong-kong, Elee Ning-koo-tap and
Oloo-muk-tsze. All convicts from the midland and southern provinces
are sent to one or the other of these places, where the unhappy men are
employed in a great measure according to their former circumstances of
life. Those who are of a robust nature and who have been accustomed to
agricultural pursuits are daily occupied in reclaiming and cultivating
waste lands. Others, more especially those who have been sent from the
southern provinces, where the heat in summer is almost tropical, are,
in consequence of the severity of the cold which prevails in northern
latitudes, made to work in government iron foundries. The aged and
those who have not been accustomed to manual labour are daily employed
in sweeping the state temples and other public buildings.
The fifth class of punishment is termed _man-low_, or transportation
for ten or fifteen years. The criminals of this class are petty
burglars and persons who harbour those who have broken the laws. Such
offenders are generally sent to the midland provinces of the empire,
where the arrangements for convict labour are similar to those of the
penal settlements of the north. Convicts of this class who are natives
of the midland provinces are sent either to the eastern, western or
southern provinces of the empire. The barbarous practice of tattooing
the cheeks is also resorted to with these prisoners. The sixth class is
called _man-tow_, or transportation for three years. A punishment of
this nature is the portion of gamblers, salt smugglers, etc. A convict
of this class is transported to one of the provinces immediately
bordering upon that of which he is a native or in which his crime was
committed.
Oppression by the ruling class was always rife in China, and instances
might be multiplied recording the cruel misusage of inferiors by
the mandarins. One case in which ample vengeance was exacted by the
aggrieved victim may be quoted here. The story is told by Lady Susan
Townley in her “Chinese Note Book.”
“A well-to-do farmer called Chiang-lo lived happily on his estate with
a pretty wife whom he loved, until one day, as ill luck would have it,
a rich Mandarin passed that way, who, seeing the fair dame, straightway
desired her. Anxious to get rid of the husband by fair means or foul,
he trumped up a charge against him, and the farmer was condemned ‘to
be a slave to a soldier,’ which meant that he would be marched in
heavy chains from Peking to the northern frontier of China, cruelly
beaten at every station (they occur about every eighteen miles), and
ill-treated at will by the soldier in charge of him. This sentence is
usually equivalent to death, for few can survive the hardships of such
a journey, the fatigue, heat, cold, hunger and torture. But our friend
with hatred in his heart resolved to live in order to be revenged upon
his enemy. So he bore all his sufferings with superhuman courage, and
finally arrived at his destination on the frontier, where he was put
to work in a mine.” After he had been there about three years His
Majesty Kwang Hsu assumed the reins of government, and accorded a
general pardon to all criminals. Thus in a night Chiang-lo recovered
his freedom, and without a moment’s hesitation set off to trudge back
to Peking. “This time there was hope in his heart for he meant to kill
his enemy and the wife who had betrayed him. When he saw her again,
however, all his old love for her returned and though she refused to go
with him, and though he knew that if he killed them both, Chinese law
would account him guiltless, whereas if he killed her lover and spared
her, he would be considered guilty of murder, and would have to bear
the penalty, he did not hesitate one moment, but left her and went to
find her seducer.
“For days he tracked him about the town, waiting for a favourable
opportunity. At last it came, as his rival passed him in the deep
embrasure of the Chien-men gate. Springing from his place of
concealment he challenged him to fight, but the coward refused. Then
Chiang-lo ... drew his knife and repeatedly stabbed him in the heart.
When he saw his enemy lying dead at his feet, the apathy of despair
fell upon him. Wiping his knife on his sleeve he bowed his head, and
turning his steps to the nearest police station calmly gave himself up.
A few weeks later he was beheaded.”
It is interesting to read that the prevailing method of punishment in
China in the seventeenth century differed little from that in force
at a very recent date. In the memoirs of the Jesuit Louis le Comte,
published in 1698, he says: “They have several ways of inflicting
death. Mean and ignoble persons have their heads cut off, for in
China the separation of the head from the body is disgraceful. On the
contrary, persons of quality are strangled, which among them is a death
of more credit.... Rebels and traitors are punished with the utmost
severity; that is, to speak as they do, they cut them into ten thousand
pieces. For after that the executioner hath tied them to a post, he
cuts off the skin all round their forehead which he tears by force till
it hangs over their eyes, that they may not see the torments they are
to endure. Afterwards he cuts their bodies in what places he thinks
fit, and when he is tired of this barbarous employment, he leaves them
to the tyranny of their enemies and the insults of the mob.”
Cruelty, which is one of the strongest characteristics of the Chinese
nature, manifests itself not only in the application of criminal law,
but with a peculiar callousness they delight to torture dumb animals
and enjoy witnessing the sufferings of children and adults of their
own race. A common practice of the professional kidnapper is to blind
a child after stealing it, and then carry it away to another town and
sell it for a professional beggar. Infant life is still being destroyed
by parents in some districts of China, and the abominable custom is
difficult to eradicate, as the children are simply abandoned and left
to starve, and if the crime is discovered it is difficult to prove
deliberate murder.
Cases have been known of Chinese boatmen refusing to rescue persons
who had thrown themselves overboard from a sinking craft and were
drowning, unless they agreed to pay an exorbitant sum asked as the
price of rescue. They have even been known to look on passively while
their fellow-countrymen were struggling for life in the water, without
raising a hand to help them.
It is but natural to expect that in a country where such occurrences
are common, the punishments inflicted on the really guilty should
exceed anything known in the practices of the enlightened nations of
to-day.
PRISONS OF JAPAN