The Sun.
London, England, 1858-03-30 00:00:00

than the last. They were too far gone to
shriek, although the agony must have been
great; the heavy irons pressing upon their raw, lank
shins as the gaolers lugged them not too tenderly
along. They had been beaten into this state, per-
haps long ago, by the heavy bamboo, and had been
thrown into this den to rot. Their crime was that
they had attempted to escape. Hideous and loath-
some, however, as was the sight of their foul
wounds, their filthy rags, and their emaciate .1
bodies, it was not so distreesing as the indescribable
expression of their eyes. The horror of that look of
fierce agony fixed us like a fascination.' As the
dislocated wretches writhed upon the ground tears
rolled down the cheeks of the soldiers of the escort,
who stood in rank near them. A gigantic French
sergeant, who had the little Mandarin in custody,
gesticulated with his bayonet so fiercely that
we were afraid he would kill him. We did not
then know that the single word which the poor
creatures were trying to utter was ' hunger,' or that
that dreadful starting of the eyeball was the look of
famine. Some of them had been without fool for
four days. Water they had, for there is a well in
the yard, and their fellow-prisoners had supplied
them, but cries for food were answered only by the
bamboo. Alas ! it was not till the next morning
that we found this out ; for although we took some
away, we left others there that night. Since
the commencement of this year 15 men have died
iu that cell. Some of those who were stand-
ing by me asked, " How will you ever be able
to tell this to the English people ?" I believe that
no description could lead the imagination to a full
conception of what we saw in that Canton prison.
I have not attempted to do more than dot a faint
outline of the truth, and when I have read what I
have written T feel how feeble and forceless is the.
image upon paper when compared with 'the scene
upon my memory.
This was the worst of the dens we opened, but
there were many others which fell but few degrees
below it in their horrors. There was not one of
the 6,000 prisoners we saw whose appear we before
any assemblage of Englishmen would not have
aroused cries of indignation. "Quelle societe," ex-
claimed Captain Martineau, as in the first yard we
visited he saw a little boy confined here because he
was the son of a rebel, "(belle societe pour un en-
fant de quatorze ans !" Alas we saw many, many
such cases in our after experience. In one of the
dens of the Poon-yu, the door of which was open,
some one pointed attention to a very child—rather
an intelligent-looking child—who was squat upon
a board and laughing at the novel scene taking
place before him. We beckoned to him, but he did
not come. We went up to him, and found he could
not move. His little legs were ironed together ;
they had been so for several months, and were now
paralysed and useless. This child of 10 years of
age had been placed here, charged with stealing
from other children. We took him away.
It was not until our second day's search that we
were able to discover the prison in which Europeans
had been confined. Threats and a night in the
guard-house at last forced the discovery from the
Mandarin, or gaol inspector, in our custody. It is
called the Koon Khan, is in the eastern part of the
city, and is distinguishable from the others only
that it is surrounded by a high brick wall.
Nearly the whole of our second day was passed
in this place. It has only one yard, and in this
the prisoners are not allowed to come. There is
a joss house at one end of the court ; for, of course,
the Chinese mix up their religion with their
tyranny. The finest sentiments, such as " The
misery of to-day may be the happiness of to-mor-
row ; " "Confess your crimes, and thank the
magistrate who purges you of them ; " " May we
share in the mercy of the Emperor," are carved
in faded golden characters over every den of
every prison. Opening from this yard are four
rooms, each containing four dens. The hardest and
mcst malignant face I ever saw is that of the chiei
gaoler of this prison. The prisoners could not be
brought to look upon him, and when he was present
could not be induced to say that he was a gaoler at
all, or that they had ever s:en him before. But when
he was removed they always reiterated their first
story, "The other gaolers only starve and ill-treat
us, but that man eats our flesh."

How, step by step we followed up our inquiries,
and how we cast about hither and thither for a clue
and at last found one, which was often lost and re-
found, would be too long to tell. Mr. Parkes con-
ducted this business with a vigour and intelligence
that cannot be over-estimated. At first they had
never heard of a foreigner, then a heavy box onthe
ears administered by one of the orderlies, in punish-
ment for a enroat to a- prisoner, produced A reeed-
lection of one European prisoner. Then the gaolers
were roughly handled in sight of the prisoners, and
together with the mandarin were taken out in cus-
tody of the soldiers. Gradually the prisoners began
to give credence to what we said, that we were now
the Mandarins of Canton, and could protect them
if they spoke out. One produced a monkey-jacket
from his sleeping-place at the back of the den ;
another had an old jersey; all of them soon had
stories to tell. Many of the prisoners had been in-
mates of the place for many years, and upon refer-
ence to the books we found that they were all ori-
ginally placed here for very trifling crimes. Old
stories get mixed up with new ; the difficulties of
Chinese dialects come into plAy, and we often
fancied we were unravelling some sanguinary ini-
quity of yesterday, when we found at last that it
was two or three, or even ten years old. It is only
by small degrees that the collated evidence of these
vermin-bitten witnesses are made to assume form
and consistency. It appears at last almost certain
that six Chinese were beheaded last night, their
fate being in all probability precipitated by
our visit to the other prisons. It also appears
quite certain that, within a period dating from the
commencement of the present troubles, six Euro-
pean, two Frenchmen, and four Englishmen have
found their death in these dreadful dens. Many
different prisoners examined separately deposed to
this fact, and almost to the same details: The
European victims were kept here for several months,
herding with the Chinese, eating of that same black
mess of rice which looks and smells like a bucket of
grains cast forth from a brewery. When their time
came—probably
kite
gaolerthe
time
held necessary
afdosr a
hareekply from
pewhile
and they were strangled. We asked how theyknew
it was poison. There was no doubt on this score.
It is a curious circumstance, illustrative of the pros-
trate state of terror that exists here, that the
gaoler's fowls scratch about untouched among all
the famishing men within the Canton prisons, and
feed upon the vermin. It was remarked that the
fowls fed upon the vomit of these two Europeans,
and died.

Only two of these prisoners had excited much
sympathy among the Chinese. One of them was a
sailor, who spoke the language, adapted himself to
their habits, and told them stories. He was cheer-
ful, or pretended to be cheerful, at first ; but in a
short time he grew sick and cried and spoke of his
friends far away. Even the Chinese were sorry when
his time came, and whom the gaolers poisoned bins.
There was another, an old white-bearded man, who
was there some months. He spoke only a few words
of Chinese, but the Chinese veneration for age came
to his aid, and they pitied him also.
Some of us thought that this must have been poor.
Cooper, the owner of the docks at Whampoa, who,
probably mistaken[fOr Cooper, the engineer officer,
was kidnapped from his chop boat, lying within 100
yards of the Sybille. His wife and daughter were
on board with him. A sanpan came alongside with
a letter. While he leant forward to take it he was
drawn into the sanpan, and he was away up a creek
Gg thea
ovve:
krh prisonsnwi mo ri . . .
..., a
farwu hinthn fdar
teoormf
before the alarm could' be given and a boat lowered
from the man-of-war.
The others, we were told, were not favourites.f
They could not speak, they held themselves al wile
If two of them happened to be in prison at the
same with the gaolers
alone covering his face with his hands..
ci les and
It is, I suppose, contrary toournaptriionns
,Pwhen a
policy, and the custom of civilisedlto
one, he
htheeeyitheeornvfoeursed together. If theroer wsaats
unish these acts,
and the secretary, two terrible
principal gaoler
hand of this iniquity
Indians, the head and the Wepcarried away the
and we also carried away the prisoners who had
socamintlyyehas been taken by assau
but we
information,stit:hstwedorathypoint.
given us in our
but we only
took them as witnesses, and lodged them
guard-house.
On the night of the second day the three :
hisby pthriissonsps spectacle,
twachleat
Com-
missioners sought an interview with Peli-kwei,
fiperowd,uocredafftheectefeattteoredflyan,dinptoaraalytsoedwecrhinilgd
ptaossiih.oonw,;
mai
ra
.t there
Parkesw were
s be n t instancesup upon
nf
puenrnseecceustsianrgy severityhim—
poionr
?weahs it how he dealt with his own people ? Were
right whatiibiesi
being
goatnahmtewroyo:l
ei. had
The discovered,
Lieut:
we prepared to open all the prisons in Canton I It
. was breach of faith to go into those prisons 'wtitil 1
1 out notice to him. He would write immedia sly