The Washington critic., 1890-05-22
JUDICIAL TORTURE IN CHINA.
some of the Cruelties Commonly
Practloed Upon Prisoners.

some of the Cruelties Commonly
Practioed Upon Prisoners.
Suspension of the victim by the
thumbs, with the arms bent behind the
back and the toes only touching the
ground, is a common practice in China,
says the "Fortnightly Review" There
is used also in the case Of great criml-
mails. and especially in the southern
provinces, mode. of torture called
'1xneelng on chains" The victim may
be made to kneel on a coil Of sharp
chain, with his arms extended aud
lictor standing ready to fog him If he
attempts TO lower them; or he may be
suspended from the ceiling, face down
ward, by cord attached to his thumbs
and great toes. and lowered till the
weight of the body rests on the knees
on the chain.
Quite recently, according TO Chinese
newspaper, two men charged with be-
longing to secret association In Hupeh
were made to kneel on sharp chains
and received 900 blows with the light
bamboo to elicit confession, There had
been, apparently, some indications of
local disturbance, and these men were
arrested as ringleaders. Suspension,
too, by one wrist and ankle; suspension
by pole passed under the armpit, with
the hands tied under the knees, and
various other cruelties, are said to be
practiced occasionally in southern
yameps. Yet there are in the Penal
| Code stringent provisions against the
infliction of illegal punishment, and the
| penalty if death ensue is severe.
| a mandarin has quite recently, for
| instance, come to serious grief for de.
| capitatipg man where the law called
for strangulation, the point being that
dismemberment of the body is a dis
grace and was in excess, therefore, of
the legal sentence. But IL may easily
be conceived that in the matter of tor
ture, and in all ordinary cases, the fol
lowing provision in section Alb of the
Chinese law is sufficiently elastic to
shield multitude of delinquencies:
"When 1t so happens that imme-
diately after the infliction of punish
ment on the upper part of the back Of
the thighs, and in lawful manner,
the culprit commits suicide or dies In
any manner in consequence of the pun
ishment he has undergone, no person
shall be held responsible for the same
Unless o case had been so glaring as
to excite the whole neighborhood-and
the Chinese are not easily moved
means would be found to hush up OF
explain away improprieties. The power
and venality of official underlings, the
general prevalence of bribery, the diff
culties attending appeals, and the alb
sence of that publicity which renders
illegality practically impossible in Eng
land, make it very difficult to secure
the correction of injustice in Chin 1,
Cases do, however, occasionally hap
peu and one such was recorded in thu
Pekin Gazette last September A
draper at a small town in Central Chini
found in the morning that his shop hai
been plundered. Going out to pros
pect, he found some bits of cloth on th
river bank, and little further up
Junk at anchor.
He then seems to have stretched
point, declared that he had found tn
cloth on the junk, and so procured tn
arrest of all on board The magistrat
forthwith employed torture, tortured
the crew into admitting themselves ac
cossories, and tortured to death tn
two men, father and son, who had char
tered the boat. When the case cam
before the chief provincial authoritie
on report they considered it so unsatis
factory that they sentenced the drape
to be strangled for giving maliciou
false evidence, resulting in the death c
the accused, and the magistrate to b
cashiered and banished for carelessnes
,, and illegal torture.