Nevada County picayune., 1891-02-12
JUDICIAL TORTURE.
Some of the More Common Forms OF Cruel
ty Practiced In China.

Suspension of the victim by tho thumbs,
with the arms bent behind the back
and the toes touching the ground, is a
common practice. There is used also in
the case of great criminals, and espe-
cially in the southern provinces, mode
of torture called 'knseling on chains"
The victim may be made 30 kneel on a
coil OF sharp chain, with his arms OK.
tended, and a lictor standing ready to
fog him il 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 tho
weight Of the body rests on the knees
on the chain. Quite recently, according
to Chinese newspaper, two men charged
with belonging to secret association In
Hupeh were made 70 kneol on sharp
chains and seceivcd 900 blows with the
light bamboo to elici.confession. There
had been, apparently, some indications
Of local disturbance, and these men
were arrested as rirsleaders. Suspen-
sion, too, by ono wrist and ankle; sus
pension by pole passed under the arm
pit, with the hands tied under the knees,
and various other cruelties are said TO
be practiced occasionally in the south
crn yamcns. Yet there are, in the
penal code, stringento provisions against
the iniliction Of Illegal punishment; and
the penalty, II death ensue, is severe.
A mandarin has quite recently, for in
stance, come to serious grief for docapi.
tating a man whore the law called for
strangulation; the point being that dis
mcmberment Il the body is n disgrace,
and was in excess therefore, OF the legal
sentence But It may easily be con-
ceived that in the matter of torture,
and in all ordinary cases, the 70 wing
provision in section AZ Of the Chinese
law is sufficiently elastic TO shield a
multitude of delinquencics;
when Il so happens that, Immediately after
the infection Of punishment on the upper part
OF the back OF the thighs ana in a Law. man.
ucr the culprtt commits suicide or dies in any
manner In consequence Of the punishment he
had undergone. no person shall be held re
sponsble for the same"
Unless a case had been so glazing as
to excite the whole neigh borhood-
tho Chinese are not easily moved
| means would be found to hush up or ex-
plain away impromictic. Tho power
and venality of Official undcrlings tho
general prevalenoo OF bribery, the
| difficulties Attending appeals, and tho
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 Pekinc
Gazette last September. A draper at q
small town in Central China found in
tho morning that his shop had been
plundercd. Going out 10 prospect, he
found some bits of cloth on the river
bank and little further up 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. Tho magistrate
forthwith employed torture--tortured
the crew into admitting themselves ac.
cessorics, 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 tho draper To
be stranglod for giving malicious false
evidence resulting in the death of tho
accused and the magistrate to be cash.
Tered and banished for carclcssness and
lIlosal Enthusiastically Review.
--"is that young man gonc, MatildaP'
cried her father trau the ton of tho
stairs. 20 awfaiIFl returned Matilda.