Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-17

be read in the lines fixing the punishment,
The sentences where the criminals are to be
sliced to death are many. Strangling is
common and decapitation is an easy method
of taking Off The bastinado and foggjpp
are found in nearly every issue, and 1 see
that corrupt officials are often degraded
from their ranks. In q country where
ancestral worship prevails, the most terrible
crime is the killing of parents, and parri-
eides are, in China, invariably sliced. The
punishment of slicing to death means the
cutting off of one member at time. Finger
by finger, ear by ear, toe by toe, and the
legs by inches until the criminal at last dies
under the torture. Here is decree of such
a punishment, which shows that the in
sanity dodge does not prevail in China,
and that the insane murderer gets the same
deserts as the sane one. The decree was
published on the 10th OF last July, and the
crime occurred in the Province where 1
write this letter. l copy the decree YER
batim. The article is headed:
A PARRICIDE BY A MANIAC.
1t reads: "Li Hung Chang reports having
passed sentence upon a man who killed mis-
father during a fit of temporary derange-
ment. Whang Tsaitou had always been
subject to fits of temporary insanity, which
rendered him unconscious of what he was
doing as long as they lasted. As he was not
dangerous his father had not reported his
case to the authorities, as he did not want
him placed in confinement. One morning
last March he went into a bakers shop and
began to dance about wildly in one of his
fits of insanity. His father came in and
ordered him home, whereupon he picked up
a cleaver and struck the old man upon the
head and neck, killing him. At the in
quest he was not able to talk and jabbered
away in kind of gibberish. The law says
that the son who, sane or insane, kills his
father, shall suffer death by the slicing pro-
cess, and this is the sentence that has been
passed in the present instance. The neigh
bors who had not reported the man s insanity
to the officers, and who have therefore rem
dered themselves liable to the same penalty,
as for not preventing the commission OF
murder, have been fined and given 100
blows each"
On the 9th of last September / see that
murderer VINO killed rival through ieal-
ousy was sentenced to be strangled and that
the woman in the case was fogged with 100
Oows for loose living.
1t is almost impossible to conceive that
such cruelties exist in this latter part of the
nineteenth century, but they do exist here
in tuli force, and the board of punishments
of Peking, passes upon such sentences daily.
Even the most ordinary punishments of
China are horrible to us, and the torture Of
the cangue can hardly be appreciated. Dur
ing this cold December day i saw sitting on
one of the narrow streets near the Tartar
wall, Chinaman with q board four feet
square so fastened about his neck that he
had just room to turn his head through the
hole in the center. His hands were tied and
his bare feet were bound by chain. His
cue was unkempt and black bristles two
inches long had grown up all over his IN
shaved head. Beside him stood another
man with similar board about his neck,