News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1889-04-25
BURNED ALIVE.
A Savage Punishment for Stealing
Revived in China.

The Peking (China) Official Gazette
gives the following report of the bar
barous punishment for theft i'll Yunnan
and the death penalty dealt out to two
men responsible forthe victim S fate:
The Governor of Yunnan states that
in some of the country districts of that
province the villagers have horrible
custom of burning to death any man
caught stealing corn or fruits in the
fields. They at the same time compel
the mans relatives to sign a document
giving their consent to what is done
and then make them light the fire with
their own hands, SO as to deter them
from lodging a complaint afterward.
Sometimes the horrible penalty is ex-
acted for the breaking of a single branch
or stalk, OF even false accusations are
made and men put to death out of Spite
This terrible practice, which seems in
credible when heard, came into use
during the time of the Yunnan rebel
hon, and the constant efforts of the au-
thorities have not succeeded in eXtirpa-
ting Is since. Last autumn n case of
the kind occurred in the Ch'uching Pre-
lecture. One evening a man named
Peng Choa-sheng was going down to
watch his own field. His path led him
along the side of a patch of maize be-
longing to another man. As he passed
he pulled off head of corn. The owner
saw him and shouted out, upon which
he dropped the corn and fled. The
owner went and told his landlord, upon
which the latter proposed that the pill
ferer should be burned
The two men having agreed, next
morning they laid the matter before an
assembly of the villagers. As the mat
ter was so tritiing, some advised that it
should be let drop, but their opinion
was not listened to. On the following
day the two men seized their victim and
bound him. The poor mans mother
came with all her relatives and begged
for mercy. She offered to make atone
ment by FORGETTING the whole of her
property to the community, but all she
could say was of no avail. The men re-
fused to give way, and ordered her to
give her consent to the murder in writ
ing, threatening her that otherwise they
would put her to death also. Overcome
by fear she asked a stranger, travelling
doctor, who cannot be identified, to
write the required paper for her. They
then piled up a heap of brushwood in
an empty place outside the village, and
the next day at noon carried the man
ont laid him bound upon it. The wo-
man was compelled to set fire to the
faggots, and her son was burned to
death.
Afterward, as soon as she could, she
stole away to the town and gave infor-
nation to the authorities. The two men
were Immediately arrested. One of
them, the landlord, died i'll prison; but
the other WAS sent to the provincial cap
ital for trial. The Memoralist finds that
in the fifteenth year OF Ch'ien Lung,
A. d. 1850, at the request of the Gov
ernor of Szechuen, it was decreed that
i'll the case of any person being burned
to death by body of men, the princi-
pal offender should be executed by the
lingering process and the participants
in the crime be beheaded. The land
lord, who III this case was the principal,
has already died. His fellow offender
has been condemned to immediate de-
capitatiOn, and the sentence has been
carried into effect without delay.