The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-10-25
EXECUTIONS IN CHINA.
Cruel and Revolving Forms of the Death
Punishment.


nese. Their nerves survive shocks
which would prove fatal to more
finely organized people and they prac-
tice methods of self immolation for un-
selfish ends inconceivable to the west
ern mind. Such a custom, for example,
as substituting ones self to be executed
in consideration of a certain sum OF
money, that the family may be left en-
riched and Independent, is beyond our
ken, and the liberation of it is impossi-
BILE of understanding.
1t is a queer anomaly that these
Asiatics inflict, through their laws,
frightful puniShments of torture and
death and, on the slightest provocation,
human blood is poured out like water,
while in their social relations they are
kind-hearted and good-natured, and
the thoroughly brutal, hardened rutfian
who beats his wife and starves his chill
dren is probably rarer in Shanghai than
in Shoreditch.
Under the heading of Death in the
penal code come the several modes in
tiicted. A sliding scale of capital pun
ishments is used to mark their sense of
the varying Nervousness of murderous
crimes.
For parricide, matricide and whole
sale murder, the usual sentence is that
of Ling Chih," or 'Ignominious and
slow death" In ordinary cases execu-
ton by beheading is the common mode,
and still another is strangulation. With
the exception of those cases of high
way robbery and burglary with muir
der and of rebellion and treason" in
which. the guilty having been caught
red-handed, the death penalty must be
paid within forty days. the criminals
sentenced to death in Pekin and other
cities are executed in the autumn.
The date is fixed by the imperial
edict and is usually about ten days be-
fore the winter solstice. 1t is then
that the emperor proceeds to the Tenn
pie of Heaven to render an account at
the great altar of his past years stew
ardship of the power intruSted to him
as the one agent on earth of the
most high in Heaven"
In the general record of the imperial
names and crimes of those who have
suffered death by his will during the
year, this record being burned on the
shrine, and its contents thus waited
up to the cognizance of Heaven.
Preceding this ceremonial, of course
the wretched culprits have been tried
before the board of punishments tor
trate they have heard the fatal Ching
Shih" found guilty. droned out by the
clerk. There is no jury to try the un-
fortunate delinquents; there is no oath
prefacing the testimony of witnesses;
there is no pleading by shrewd law
yers, but an autocratic condemnation,
subject to no appeal. In spite of this,
mercy is sometimes shown. A criminal
condemned to death is saved from pun
ishment if it be proved that aged pa
rents depend upon him for support.
All prisoners look eagerly forward to
these trials. They feel only joyous re-
lief from the conclusions of them or the
calm certainty of death. They are
about to escape the indescriba BILE hor-
rors of a Chinese prison. The filth and
dirt of the rooms, the brutality of the
jailers, the miserable diet, the entire
absence of the commonest sanitary ar
rangements, and their beds more like
strait jackets, with the vermin that in
fest every nook, make any change well
come to the miserable culprits.
Among the tortures incidental to a
compulsory confession is the sitting
cage. This is a strong box of heavy
timbers made just the height of the
shoulders of the culprit and just large
enough to hold him in sitting or
doubled-up position. An opening at
the top is made to encircle the neck.
the head being held without. In this
cramped position he is kept for long
hours until the pain is so great relief
must come in Inconsistencies or con-
fession, it may be, to obtain physical
ease.
The swinging pole" from which hangs
the prisoner suspended at one end by
his queue, his arms bent backward, as
also his legs, at the other by his feet.
gives perforce exquisite agony and
leaves the subject too lame, if not
broken of bone and taut of sinew. to
resist any demand for full confession.
The Triple Cangue," seemingly SO
simple, is severe enough in its heavy
drag on the bones of the spine, as
bleeding necks and lacerated shoulders
attest, while swarming mosquitoes,
pestilential flies. and unrelenting I'M
mentionables persistently torture, the
collar being too wide to permit the
free use of the hands to drive them
away.
Perhaps not least in pain is the
"Chain Coil" One sees some wretch.
stripped of his trousers, kneeling with
barred legs on a coil of rusted chains
He is supported by man on either
side with long pole run under his
arms, which are bent behind him A
similar pole is placed in the bend of his
knees, and on the ends of this pole the
demons who torture stand and stamp,
pressing down the raw flesh of the vic
tim on this heap of jagged iron.
Strangulation is an honorable death.
and very much mercy is thought to be
shown the condemned in permitting it
instead of decapitation because the
method does not involve mutilation of
the body, which to the Chinese mind is