Nevada County picayune., 1891-05-28
JUDICIAL TORTURE.
Some of the More Common Forms of Cruel
" PractIccd In China.

ty Practiccd In China.
Suspension of the victim by the thumbs,
with the arms bent behind the back
and the toes touching the ground, is
common practice. There is used also In
the case of great criminals, and espe-
cially in the southern provinces, a mode
of torture called "knseling on chains"
The victim may be made to kneel on a
coil of sharp chain, with his arms ex'
tended, and lictor standing ready to
fog him if he 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. Quito recently, according
to Chinese newspaper, two men charged
with belonging to a secret association in
Hupeh were made to kneel on sharp
chains and seceived 900 blows with the
! light bamboo to elici: confession. There
had been, apparently, some indications
of local disturbance, and these men
were arrested as rir.yleaders. Suspen-
sion, too, by one wrist and ankle; sus
pension by pole passed under the arm
pit, with the hands tied under the knees,
and various other crueltics are said to
be practiced occasionally in the south
orn yamens. Yet there are, in the
penal code, neutrality-suspicious. against
the infliction of illegal punishment; and
the penalty, If death ensue, is severe.
A mandarin has quite recently, for in
stance, come to serious grief for decapi-
tating a man whore tho law called for
strangulation; the point being that dis
memberment Il the body is disgrace,
and was in excess therefore, of the legal
sentence. But it may easily DO con-
ceived that in the matter of torture,
and in all ordinary cases, the 70 wing
provision in section AS of tho Chinese
! law is sufficiently elastic 10 shield a
multitude Of delinquencies:
When II so happens that immediately after
the infection OF punishment on the npper part
/ OF the back OF the thighs, and in Law. man
ner the culprt commits suicide or dies in any
manner in consequence Of the punishment he
had undergone, no person shall be held re
/ spOnsible for the same
! Unless case had been so glaring as
TO excite the whole neighborhood and
! tho Chinese are not easily moved
means would be found to hush up or ex-
plain away improprieties The power
and venality of official undcrlings, the
general prevalence Of bribery the
1 difficulties attending appeals, and the
absence of that publicity which renders
/ illegality practically impossible in En-
gland, make it very difficult to secure
! the correction Of injustice in China.
| Cases do, however, occasionally happen;
! and one such was recorded in the Picking
Gazette last September A draper at a
small town in Central China found in
the morning that his shop had been
/ plundered. Going out to prospect, he
! found some bits of cloth on the river
! bank and a little further up a junk at
! anchor He then seems to have stretched
/ point, declared that he had found the
! cloth on the junk, and SO procured the
| arrest Of all on board. The magistrate
| forthwith employed torture tortured
the crew into admitting themselves ac-
cessories, and tortured to death the two
men, father and son, who had chartered
the boat. When the case came before
the chief provincial authorities on re.
port, they considered it so unsatisfac.
tory that they sentenced the draper to
be strangled for giving malicious false
evidence rcauitiny in the death of the
accused. and tho magistrate TO be cash
tered and banished for carelossness and
Illegal torture. -Fottnighuy Review.
,'"s that young man gone, Matilda?'
cried her father !rom tho top OF the
/ r..