Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-04-23
The Chinese Prisons-HorrlbIe De-
tails.


ing scription of the condition of the prisons
at Canton when the English army entered that
city. Their correspondent says
We were examining one of the yards of the
second prison, ard Lord Elgin, who is seldom
absent when any work is doing. was one Of
the spectators. As it was broad daylight the
dens were supposed to be empty. Some one
thought he heard a low moan in one of them,
and advanced TO the bars to listen. He re-
coiled as if blast from a furnace had rushed
ont upon him. Never were human senses as
sailed by a more horrid stream of pestilence.
The jailors were ordered to open that place,
and refusing, as Chinaman always at first
refuses. were given over to the rough handling
of the soldiers, who were told to make them.
No sooner were hands laid upon the jailOrs
than the stifad moan became wall. and the
wall became a concourSe OF low, weakly NUT
tercd-groans. So soon as the double doors
could be opened several of us went into the
place.
The thick stencil could only be endured for
a moment, but the spectacle not one to
| look long at. A corpse lay at the bottom of
the den, the breasts, the only fleshy parts,
| gnawed and eaten away by rats. Around it
and upon it was fest ring mass of humanity
still alive. The Mandarin jalor who seemed
| to wonder what all the excitement was about,
| drawn forth, and no man who saw that sight
| will ever forget it. They were skeletons, not
men. You could only believe that there was
! blood in their bodies, by seeing it clothed
| upon their undresscd wounds. As they We're
borne ont one after the other. and laid upon
| the pavement of the yard. each seemed more
! horrible than the last They were too far gone
TO shrek. although the agony must have been
| great. the heavy irons pressing upon their raw
lank 4hins as the jail,rs lugged them not too
| tcnderly along. They had been beaten into
this state. perhaps long ago, by the heavy
| bamboo, and had been throw into this den to
| rot. Their crime that they had attempt
| ed to escape. HideOus and lOathsome, how
! ever, as was the sight Of their foul wounds,
! their filthy rags, and their emaciated bodies,
! it was not so distressing the indescri-
bable expression of their eyes the horror of
that look Of fierce agony fixed us like tas-
| cination.
As the dslocatcd wrctches writhcd upon the
| ground, tears rolled down the cheeks of the
soldiers of the escort, who stood in rank near
them. gigantic French sergeant, who had
the little Mandarin in custody, gesticulatcd
| with his hayOnet so tiercely 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 food 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 that night. Since
| the commencement of this year, fifteen men
| have died IN that cell. Some of those who
! were standing by me asked = How will you
ever be able to tell this to the English people,"
! believe that no d scription could lead the i'm
| aginatiOn to full conception of what we saw
| in that Canton prison. have not attempted
| to do more than dot faint outline of the
truth. and when have read what have writ
ten 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 5000 prisoners we saw, whose
| app arance before any assemblage of English
men would not have aroused cries Of indigna-
ton.