In China, the laws still permit torture, to a defined extent, and the
magistrate often inflicts it, contrary to law. Compressing the ancles of
men between wooden levers, and the fingers of women with a small
apparatus, on the same principle, is the most usual form. But there are
many other devices suggested and practised, contrary to law; and in
every part of the empire, for some years past, there have been many
instances of suspected persons, or those falsely accused, being tortured
till death ensued. From Hoopih province, an appeal is now before the
emperor, against a magistrate who tortured a man to death, to extort a
confession of homicide; and we have just heard, from Kwang-se province,
that on the 24th of the 11th moon, one Netseyuen, belonging to Canton,
having received an appointment for his high literary attainments, to the
magistracy of a Heen district, in a fit of drunkenness, subjected a
young man, on his bridal day, to the torture, because he would not
resign the band of music which he had engaged to accompany, according to
law and usage, his intended wife to his father's house. The young man's
name was Kwanfa. He died under the torture, and the affrighted
magistrate went and hanged himself.