CHINESE PRISON.

Prisoners who have money to spend, can be accommodated with private

apartments, cards, servants, and every luxury. The prisoners' chains and

fetters are removed from their bodies, and suspended against the wall,

till the hour of going the rounds occurs; after that ceremony is over,

the fetters are again placed where they hurt nobody. But those who have

not money to bribe the keepers, are in a woful condition. Not only is

every alleviation of their sufferings removed, but actual infliction of

punishment is added, to extort money to buy "burnt-offerings" (of paper)

to the god of the jail, as the phrase is. For this purpose the prisoners

are tied up, or rather hung up, and flogged. At night, they are fettered

down to a board, neck, wrists, and ancles, amidst ordure and filth,

whilst the rats, unmolested, are permitted to gnaw their limbs! This

place of torment is proverbially called, in ordinary speech, "Te-yuk," a

term equivalent to the worst sense of the word "hell."

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 326, August 9, 1828 · 第 42 / 57 题