Untitled

826
EAST ASIA.
PENAL CODE.
The penal code is clear, precise, and logical, but extremely
harsh. Most
sentences are passed after a simple examination made in public. There are no
recognised advocates, and if the mandarin allows friends or relatives to plead for
the accused, it is entirely an act of condescension on his part. Being relatively far
less numerous than in Europe, the magistrates decide cases in a much more
summary manner. Still armed with the right of inflicting torture, they exercise it
with the same severity as was practised
in the West until recent times. Scourging,
tearing out the nails, crushing the ankles or fingers, hanging by the armpits, and
a hundred other excruciating torments are inflicted for the purpose of extracting
confessions or revelations of accomplices. Atrocious sentences are daily inflicted,
and besides the three ordinary methods of putting to death, by beheading,
strangling, and garotting, the code provides for the punishment of " slow death."
Formerly flaying alive was protracted for days together, but at present a few
gashes on the face and hands are substituted, after which decapitation puts an end
to the victim's sufferings. Fortunately the nervous system of the Chinese is far
less sensitive than that of Europeans. The doctors attached to the hospitals in
Hong Kong and Shanghai all speak
with astonishment of the indifference of the
patients under the severest operations.
For lighter offences the usual punishments are the rod and the cangne, a wooden
collar weighing about 75 Ibs. The convict condemned to wear this horrible
instrument of torture, finding no rest asleep or awake, and exposed night and day
to all the inclemencies of the weather, breaks down under the pitiless burden, and
implores wayfarers to put an end to his intolerable sufferings by death. The
prisons are loathsome dens, where the condemned are huddled together, and
exposed to the brutality of gaolers, often chosen from the criminals themselves.
Those who are unaided by their relatives or the charitable societies run the risk of
being starved to death. Women are seldom punished with severity, their husbands
or sons being considered responsible for their faults. The principle of substitution
is fully recognised, not only in the case of a son presenting himself instead of his
father, but even when a stranger offers, " for a consideration," to undergo the
sentence. As long as the debt is discharged, justice is satisfied, whoever be the
victim. Even in the case of torture and death, suppliants are found willing to
endure everything in order to secure some advantage for their families. During
the Anglo-French invasion of Pechili, some Chinese assassins having been sentenced
to death, substitutes presented themselves, and loudly denounced the injustice
which refused to allow them to take the place of the criminals. Those sentenced
to the rod easily find crowds of ready volunteers, whence the remark that " in
China there are thousands who live by blows."
In some districts a substitute may be procured to confess himself guilty of a
felony, and suffer certain death for about fifty taels of silver, a sum equivalent to
17 sterling, but worth in China perhaps as much as 100, regard being had to
the relative price of provisions and other necessaries. Hence it is that the