The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1894-02-12
CHINESE PENAL PAINS.
Hospitals and Prisons Alike Dis
grace to the Celestial Land
National Ignorance Governs All the Chi
nese Institutions, and Neither Decency
Nor Humanity Have a Place IN the
Treatment of Sick Sinful.

nese Institutions, and Neither Decency
Nor Humanity Have Place IN the
Treatment of Sick or Sinful.
The Chinese people are lawabiding.
With those of their own number who
ure lawbreakers they have but little
sympathy, and the government has
none at all. I like China. l like the
Chinese. Moreover, 1 respect them.
But in two details of their national
life they merit unqualified condemna-
ton. Their hospitals and their prisons
are unmitigated national disgraces. On
second thoughts, 1 withdraw the word
unmitigated. The Chinese hospitals
through which I went were almost
everything that hospitals should not
be. But the patients themselves would
most strenuously have resented any i'm
provementS along the line of their own
comfort The savants of China are held
back by the tdut ropes of public opin-
ion; they are enchained by the general
ignorance, as are their prototypes every
where else.
The deplorable condition of the
Chinese prisons is justified in the ma
tional philosophy. To the Chinese
| mind law is a thing to be obeyed.
A law concerns the millions and con-
serves the welfare of millions. 1t
must be held inviolate by the indi-
vidual, be his whim-his personal bent
whatever it may. The Chinaman who
disregards any item of the Chinese law
becomes a social leper. Individual ten
dency, moral i'll health, inherited traits
/ -they.are talzen-into account not at all.
This is cruel? Yes! But it renders
existence possible in the overdensity
| <,EC 1of NUT~ifPI- in the
| Pail Mall Budget says.
A Chinanan is forgiven nothing be-
cause of his ancestry, nor does he suf-
fer for that ancestry. From the mo-
ment of his birth each Chinaman has
an equal chance with every other
Chinaman. Rank is nowhere more
venerated than in China. Nowhere
does it secure to its possessor more
benefits, more privileges, but it is not
inherited. It is conferred by the en-
| peror-conferred for personal merit or
for personal achievement. No China
man is "noble'' except through per-
sonal fitness. There are two eXcep-
tions to this rule-two only. The di-
| rect descendants of Confucius have a
rank of their own. 1t is a high rank.
1t is respected. But it gives them no
power of interference with national
affairs. The descendants of an en-
peror are never less than royal But
they have no necessary power. In
brief, then, in China ''every man is
served according to his deserts and it
is greatly to the national credit that
they who do not escape whipping
are so very few.
a Chinese prison is calleda a ''cangue."
Its outer door is barred with bamboo,
and is guarded by petty soldiers or
policemen. The ''cangue" contains
two rooms and two yards. One room
and one yard are for men. The other
room and yard are for women. The
space set apart for women is very much
smaller than that for men. But the
women's quarters and the mems guar
ters are alike in being entirely devoid
of any provision for personal comfort
or for personal decency.
Chinese prisoners are by the govern
, ment provided with absolutely moth
, ing but the space beyond which they
may not pass. If their friends thrust
food to them through the bars of thC
{ prison fence the law does not interpose
Otherwise the prisoners may starve
/ The law does not interpoSe.
? used to take food to the Shangha
prison yards. 1 was not jeered at. 4
Chinese crowd is, believe, incapable
, of jeering at a woman. But 1 was con
/ demned for it. And a high Chimes
: official demonstrated with my husband
+ used to buy Chinese food at a cheal
chow-chow shop and when 1 reached
prison fence hire coolie to feed tn
poor starving wretches. 1 did no
8 quite care to feed them myself. And
/. was quite impossible for them to feet
- themselves. No Chinese prisoner cal
reach his own mouth, for his neck i
invaribly locked into board which
: about three feet square. 1t is YER
: heavy, and gals the neck. 1t blister
or ossifes the shoulders. The ''pig
:, ail'drags heavily over it,and pulls tn
# poor enlocked head uncomfortably t
,f one side. 1t prevents the hands fror
= lifting rice or water to the cravin
u mouth and from brushing from tn
is tingling nose one of the myriad insect
l. that infest the prisons and the priso
n yards of China.