The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1899-01-29
THE CHINESE IDEA OF HE'LL.
Vivid Models in IL Buddhist Temple
to- Impress the Living.

Qrom the English Illustrated Magazine.)
All Cinnamon are by nature wicked. 1t
is well that they get to know in this life
exactly the sort OF punishment that awaits
them in the next. So they receive instruc-
ton by plaster Of-paris representation. At
the temple at Yunnan-Sen you can behold
striking models of the Buddhist hells. In
other cities are other hells. l took grim
delight visiting them whenever l had the
chance. One had the same sort of clammy
satisfaction as one feels when. depressed
and out of sorts, you go off to the cham
Der Of horrors at Nine. Taussaud's TO get
cheeTcd up a bit II all depends what
you've been up to on this earth whether
your punishment under the earth is to be
sawn in two or to be squashed in q clothes
press.
In each of the bells sit one or two. or
maybe three elders. They are big. grew
some, flab-faced and slit-eyed; generally
OF furnished gold and twice the size of an
ordinary man. They are all relatives; you
can tell that by the same stern, callous,
cast-iron sort of countenance they possess;
by the uniform shape of the chin, mouth
and nose; but. above all, by the irradiating
diabolical glee that suffuses every stucco
face. They sit on a throne and lock fixedly
at the work of the executioners and the
sQuirms of the e0ecuted. The figures in
the pit are little under life-size. But
here's plenty of realism and piled-up hor-
ror. The imps engaged in faying, boring
holes through chests, hanging men up by
the toes, and generally making things live
ly have often but one glittering eye stuck
in the centre OF coal black head, the low
er part of which is literally half mouth,
stretching from ear TO ear. Their laugh
is something to remember in your dreams.
so that you wake up in a fit of cold per-
SEPARATION, yelling for it to be taken away.
There was a victim being cruciiied and
the imps were slowly shortening him at
the knees with a red-stained saw. Stand
ing in front of the wooden bars that pre-
vent the live public coming in direct con-
| tact with this particular hell were two
young men. Tapping their long Chinese
| sleeves in agony of despair, swinging their
pigtails in dismay, while tears trickled
obliquely out of their almond shaped eyes
| because the monk at the entrance to the
temple had told them that was the exact
| fate of their old father at that particular
| moment. They groaned and sobbed; then
| they got gong and relieved their sor-
| row by thwacking it; they pushed a cup
of rice and some hard boiled eggs through
| the bars as sustenance to their relative in
his trials; then they paid cash down for a
! big check that would be dispatched that
| night to the neither regions. conciliate the
| Before another bell stood an old woman
| rather complacently watching folks being
| thrown backward into a cauldron and then
probed with pitchforks. She evidently had
relatives in the real place. for she wa.
carrying an armful of propitiatory tapers
| paper. gold, and large checks.
Defunct, and yet tolerabiy lively. NOR
tails were sitting on the top tying them
selves into knots. while number OF
brutes with heads like bulls g!olted leer-
| ingiy. The elders in the adjoining place
owned a perennial laugh; for the i'm s
| had men by the heels and were dash ne
| their heads on stones. One man was be-
ing pressed on a row of daggers.
Next door several wicked Cinnamon had
| fallen on spiked mountains, and there they
| were impaiEt- and wrlthing. There was
lake with men struggling among imy
| double headed snakes: there We're several
| creatures hung up in the air with hooh
| through their yertebrae, and quite COM
| mon were the cases of evildoers swung by
the pigtails and being disemb1weled. Cer-
| tainly they're pretty ingenious where the
naughty Chinese go, Ii u Celestia has a
| reprobate of sire he does not talk t.
| him for his good, but takes him an after
| noon stroll in the Kingdom of Below, lets
| him see for himself what's likely to hap
| pen in the uncomfortable by and by. and
| then hints he doesn't think he'll be able
| to afford the expense OF buying the imps
Off Ii that doesn't make a ChiHaman turn
| from his wrongdoing and make him
promise to be better father henceforth
nothing will.