The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1900-08-23
ESPECIAL letter.

Especial Lottery
What will add particular horror to
war with China is the fact that of
all the races on the face of the earth
the Chinese are the most cruel, the
most devoted to fearful torture of those
IN their power and the most adept in
aevising ever new forms of martyr
dom for the objects of their hatred.
In their almost simple cruelty they
are worse than the animals. If they
merely delighted in the torturing, one
might say 1t was perversion. But
they do not merely delight ia it. They
torture living creatures, from rats to
men, as a simple matter of course, and
the native victims accept it equally as,
matter of course. There is some
thing supremely terrible in the mat
ter-of-fact stolid way in which they
subject prisoner to demoniac pain
with as much readiness as magistrate
In New York would sentence man to
spend 10 days ION the island
Fo begin with, there is the whipping
and scourging with bamboo rods. This
Is so common method of preparing"
victim for trial, that it is hardly con-
sidered punishment, much less torture,
Yet the bamboo is laid on hard enough
to bring blood at each stroke, and,
especially when it is applied to the
soles of the feet, the victim often faints
from pain and loss of blood combined.
One hardly can enter Chinese court
| Of Justice" without witnessing fog
ging.
The mildest punishment that is
known to the simple and kindly official
Chinese soul is the cage or Cangue
It's principle is that of all Chinese pun
tshm s1ts-slow torture. A Chinaman
would take no artistic pleasure in any
thing that killed quicker or that
reached its elimination of pain quick
". His victim must suffer a little
more, and little more. and then a
little more, each hour. In that way
he makes his delight last long and
can keep whole string of wretches to
charm him by their slow dying for
G'a:iths. If he killed them at once
his fun would be over too soon
The Cangue, then, is formed to keep
the agony of the penitent up for
months, till madness or death end his
sufferings. 1t is delightfully."- simple
!hing-so simple that there is nothing
at all terrifying about it at first sight.
| 1t merely is large frame of wood,
with collar in the middle. 1t weighs
about so pounds, and is so made that
| 1t can be locked around the mans
neck. When it is so locked it rests
1 directly on the muscles of the neck
| and on the bones of the shoulder and
1T is so constructed that it cannot be
shifted even tenth of an inch, nor
can the weight be relieved with the
hands. In addition, the collar has a
sharp rim underneath. At first the
victim does not suffer much, except
| from inconvenience. He is turned
loose as soon as the Cangue is locked
on him, and for an hour or two he
waddles around in fair comfort But.
/ gradually, as the sharp edge of the col
lar cuts deeply into the flesh of his
neck, and all his muscles are drawn
more and more tense, pain begins to
conquer him, and in week the tor
surers have the felicity of seeing mad
| aaned wretch stumble and fall around
bfindly, weeping and yelling with ang-
uish.
The bamboo furnishes favorite i'm
1 plements for Chinese legal torturers
Sharpened slivers of bamboo are used
for countless purposes in countless
ways. Indeed, if the reader will i'm
agine just what he would hate most
to have done to him with bamboo
silver, he will hit something that the
Chinese are sure to do. The most sim
| pie and merciful deeds are to stick
tiny slivers all over their victims and
TO leave them there to fester Worse
still is the cheerful practice Of driving
redge-shaped pieces of bamboo under
the finger or toe nails of accused per-
sons. This is done slowly with mai
nat.
| Crucifixion is a common form of
| punishment, but usually it is only a
mere accompaniment of other horrors.
Of all punishments involving cruel
fiXion the one that delights the official
| Chinese heart the most is Ling-Chee.
Ling-Chee is such brilliant result of
ingenious thought that the executioners
| rarely nail the man who is to suffer
this form of punishment to the cross.
| They fear that the pain from that
| might interfere with his enjoyment of
~