Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1899-03-17
BUDDHIST HELLS.
GrewsoIne Sight to BE Seen ut a Temple
In Peking.


Philadelphia Times: AT The temple
ut Yunan-Sen, writes a correspondent
of the Times from Picking ya6 San be-
hold some striking models Of the BUD
dhdist bells that are well worta atten-
ton. In other cities are other bells. i
took a grim delight In visiting them
whenever ! 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 Chamber OF
Horrors at Nine. Tussaud's to get
cheered up a bit 1t all depends what
you've been up to on this earth wheth-
er your punishment under the earth
is to be sawed in two or to be squashed
in a clothespress. In each of the bells
sit one or two, or maybe, three, elders.
They are big, grewsome, fiab-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 TRAD
iating diabolical glee that suffuses
every stucco face. They sit on a
throne and look fXedly at the work
/ of the executioners and the squirms of
the executed. The figures in the pit are
little under life size. But there's
plenty OF realism and piledup horror.
The imps engaged in fiaying, boring
holes through chests, hanging men up
by the toes and generally making
things lively have often but one gilt
tering eye stuck in the center of coal
black head, the lower part of which
/ is literally half mouth, stretched from
ear to ear. Their laugh is something
to remember in your dreams, SO that
you wake up in fit Of cold perspira-
ton, yelling for it to be taken away.
There was victim being crucified
and the imps were slowly shortening
him at the knees with a red-stained
saw. Standing in front of the wooden
bars that prevent the live public COM
ing in direct contact with this partic-
ular 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 be-
cause 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 a gong and
relieved their sorrow by thwacking it;
they pushed a cup Of rice and some
hardboiled 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 to con-
ciliate the elders and cease the saw
ing at the knees. Before another hell
stood an old woman rather complacent-
ly watching folks being thrown back
ward into a caldron and then probed
with pitchforks. She evidently had
relatives in the real place, for she was
carrying an armful Of propitiatory
tapers, paper, gold and large checks.
Then there was place with a long
stove like a red-hot kitchen range.
Defunct, and yet tolerably lively, NOR
tails were sitting on the top tying
themselves into knots, while a number
of brutes with heads like bulls gloat-
ed leeringly. The elders in the adjoin-
ing place owned a perennial laugh; for
the imps had men by the heels and
were dashing their heads on stones.
One man was being pressed on a row
of daggers. Next door several wicked
Cinnamon had fallen on spiked noun
tains, and there they were impaled and
Writhing. There was lake with men
struggling among Shiny double-headed
snakes; there we're several creatures
hung up in the air with hook through
their vertebrae, and quite common
were the cases of evildoers swung by
the pigtails and being emboweled.
Certainly they're pretty ingenious
where the naughty Chinese go. If q
Celestial has a reprobate of a sire he
does not talk to him for his good, but
takes him an afternoon stroll in the
kingdom Of below, let's him see for
himself what's likely to happen 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. If that doesn't make a Chinaman
turn from his wrong doing and make
him promise to be a better father
henceforth nothing will.
All England's Fault.