The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-04-22
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compelled to have the poor creatures drawn forth
and no man who saw that sight will ever forget il
They were skeletons not men. You could only be
lleve that there was blood in their bodies by seen
1t clotted upon their undressed wounds
As they We're borne out one after the other an
iald upon the pavement Of the yard, each seeme
more horrible than the last. They were too ia
gone to shrek, although the agony nust have hoo,
great the heavy irons pressing upon their raw anj
shns as the gaolers lugged them not too tenderl,
along. They had been beaten into this state, per
haps long ago. by the heavy bamboo and had beer
thrown into this den to rot Their crime was III bo
they had attempted to escape. Hideous and Ioath
some. however. as the sight of their fon
wounds, their filthy rags, and their emaciated bod
les, 1t was not so distressing the indescribable
expression of their eyes, the horror of that look nj
fierce agony fixed us like fascination
As the dislocated wretches wrthed upon the
ground tears rolled down the cheeks of the soldiers
OF the escort who stood in the rank near ,hem. A
gigantic French SERGEANT who had the little manda
rln in custody, gesticulatad with his bayonet so
iercely that we were afraid he would kill him. We
did not then know that the single word which the
poor creatures trying to utter was .hunger ;,
or that that dreadful startling of the eveball was
the look OF famine. Some of them had been with
out food for four days. Water they had, for there
Is well in the yard and their felow-prisoners had
supplied them, but cries for food were answered on
| ly by the bamboo
Alas! it was not until the next morning that we
Iounu TINS out: for although we took some away,
we lett Others there that night. Since the com
vi thIs ear, Hltccn men have died
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 description
c9uiu lead the imagination to full conception of
! "hat we saw In that Canton prison. have not at
tempted to do more than dot faint outline of the
truth, and when have read what | have written
lee now feeble and orceless is the upon paper
mi mheh compared with the scene upon my memory
MS was the worst of the dens 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 whose appearance before any assemblage of Eng
iiShmen would not have aroused cries of indigna-
| tion "Q"ete socicte," exclaimed Captain Marti-
neau as in the first yard we visited he saw little
BOY confined here because he was the son of rebel
"Q"eUe sOcete pour an enjant de guat0yze ans p
Alas we saw many, many such eases in our after
| experience In one of the dens of the Poon-yu
the door OF which was open, some one pointed at
!enti9n to very child-rather nteresting-look-
ing chlld-Who was squat upon a board and lauph-
ing 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 1roned together; they had been so for
several months, and were paralyzed and use
less. The child of ten years of age had been
placed here charged with stealing from other child
rem. We took him awav
THE PRIsON-HOUSE OF THE EUROPEANS
1t was not until our second day's search that we
were able to discover the prison in which Europe
ans had been confined. Threats and night in the
guard-house at last forced the discovery from the
[
called koon Kahn, is in the eastern part of the city
and Is dlstnguishable from the others only in that
1t Is surrounded by high brick wall. Nearly the
whoie OF our second day passed in this place
IL has only one yard and in this the prisoners are
not allowed to come. There is Joss house at one
end OF the court for, of course the Chinese mix up
their religion with their tyranny.
Ihe fnest sentiments, such as "The misery of to-
day may be the happiness of tomorrow" 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
m S yar1 are Tour rooms, each containing four dens.
Inc hardest and most malignant face ever saw is
That OF the chief gaOer of this prison. The prison
ers could notbe brought to look upon him. and when
he was present could not be induced to say that he
was gaolcr at all, that they had ever seen him
before But when he was removed they always
reiterated their first story, The other gaolcrs only
Sarve and iltreat us, but that man eats our flesh
How, step by step, we followed up our Inquiries
ana now we cast about hther and thither for clue
ana at last found one, which was often lost and re-
iouno would be too long to tell. Mr.. Parkes con
Quoted this business with vgour and Intelligence
thac cannot be over-estimated. At first they had
never heard OF foreigner then a heavy box on the
ears, administered by of the orderlies in punish
ment tor threat to prisoner, produced recollec-
uon OF one European prisoner. Then the gaOlers were
roughly handled in ght of the prisoners and togcth-
erwin the mandarin were taken out in tody of the
soldiers. Gradually the prisoners began to give
credence to what we said, that we were now the
mandarns 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
old Jersey; all of them had stories to tell Many
OF the prisoners had been inmates of the place for
many years, and upon reference to the books we
found that they were all originally placed here for
very trling crimes. Old stories get mixed up with
new; the difficulties of Chinese dialects come into
play, and we often tancied were unravelling
some sangunary iniquity of yesterday, when we
lound at last that 1T was two or three, ten
years old.
1t only by small degrees that the collated evi-
dence of these vermin bitten witnesses are made to
assume some form and consistency. 1t appears at
last almost certain that six Chinese were beheaded
last night, their fate being in all probability precip-
itated by visit to the other prisons 1t also ap-
pears quite certain that within period dating from
the commencement OF the present troubles six Eu-
ropeans-two Frenchmen and four Englishmen-
have found their death in these dreadful dens
Many different prisoners examined separately de-
posed to this fact, and almost to the same details
Inc European victims were also kept here for
era months, herding with the Chinese, eating of
that same black mess of rice which looks and smells
like bucket of grains cast from brewery.
when their time came probably the time neces
sary Tor reply from Pekin-thc goalcr held their
heads back while poison was poured down their
throats. The prisoners recollected two who threw
up the poison, and they were strangled. We asked
how they knew it was poison. There was no doubt
on that score. 1t is curious circumstance illus
trative OF the positive state of terror that exists
here, that the goalers fowls scratched about un-
touched among all the famishing men within the Can
ton prisons, and feed upon the vermin. 1t was re-
marked that the fowls fed upon the vomit of these
two EuI opeans and died Only these prisoners
had excited much sympathy among the Chinese
One OF them was sailor, who spoke the language,
adapted himself to their habits, and told them stO-
RES. lie was cheerful, or pretended to be cheerful
at first; but in short time he grew sick and cried
and spoke of his friends far away. Even the Chi
nese were sorry when his time came, and when the
gaolers poisoned him. There was another, an old
white bearded hn uraSf fhnro he
lie spoke only Chinese, but the Chinese veneration
for age came to his aid, and they pitied him also.
From the London Times ArrH7
TIE LEVlATHAN IN A STORM
During the course of yesterday advantage was
taken of the favorable change in the state of the
weather to secure this vessel against anv further
chance OF accident, and in the course of few days
more the whole of the mooring chains which gave
way on Monday will be replaced by Others of the
newest and strongest kind. As most of read
ers are probably aware, the Leviathan is moored
fore and aft by five powerful 215 inch mOoring
chains at each end, each of these chains being
held by at least one, and in some cases, by two
strong and heavy anchors, deeply set in the rivers
bed. The manner in which these are disposed
Is, at the stem, two on the point, and two on the
starboard bow, with one carried out straight ahead
and the length of each chain varies from 100 faith
oms on the Deptford to 100 the Blackwell side
of the river. All these moorings were laid down
early in November last when the launch of the YES
sci flrst commenced. On that memorable Sunday
when the Levathan was for the first time regularly
aioat she conducted to this berth and made fast
IN the way we have already described. Howev-
er, in the course of few days afterwards, during
the prevalence of some very squally weather. one
or two of the anchors of these mooring chains came
home in a manner that necessitated extra precau-
tions, and accordingly they were backed bv some
of Trotmans anchors In way that guaranteed their
holding under any strain that likely to come
upon them at that of the year. But the place
in which the vessel is moored in the outer bend of
the river, exposed to the full sweep of both wind
and tide up thestream, occasionally put her holdfsts
to severe test On Monday the northeasterly
squalls which broke across the river were most vio-
lent, now and then blowing with all the force of a
full gale. Exposed to the wind in roadstead,
a single chain and anchor would have sulliced to
hold the IN shir ,,Lnh rrnnlL nfcnmrsp hnun