The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1914-04-01
In Which Human Beings
Are Confined
AND FED FROM THE OUTSIDE
HideOus Punishment Practiced
In Mongolia Prison.
erS For Life.
JOYFULLy THEY MEET DEATH

| On. COligny in Cincinnati Enquirer)
Some two months ago we publish
ed i'm these columns general de-
scription of life in Mongolia. We
spoke OF Mongolia comparatively
recent rebellion against Chinese
tyranny, and of her success i'm
throwing off q yoke of seven centu-
ries. We also spoke of her parasite
cal priesthood, which forms 65 per
cent. of the male population, and of
These features of life in Urga, the
capital (Which has been called the
second Babylon'D, are interesting
and picturesque enough. but there is
another side of Urga-the unpictur-
esque side-the dark and hideous
side, which smells to heaven. 1t is
Mongolia's prison dungeons. In an
extraordinary article in the illus
trated London News Mrs. Bulstrode.
the noted traveller, writes:
IL obtained a permit to visit the
prison with the greatest difficulty.
The Mongols have it in them to be
most diabolically cruel, and a more
terrible fate than that which befalls
the Mongol malefactor at Urga is
difficult of conception. Within a
small compound fenced in by high,
spiked palisades are five or six dun
|
those dungeons, and among them
number of highly civilized Chinese
imprisoned for political offenses,
who are shut up for the remainder
of their lives in heavy, iron-bound
collins, out of which they never un-
der any conditions or for any pur-
pose, move. They cannot sit up
/ right, they cannot lie down fiat, and
they see daylight but for a few min
utes when their food is thrust into
their collins twice in the "a hours.
The sight of the hopeless misery
of these prisoners made it easy to
understand the light-heartedness
with which three Mongol soldiers
went to their execution a few days
later on. Six months previously
they had murdered their General,
and in the interval had been drag
ging out a miserable existence in the
collins. Preceded by a cavalcade of
medieval looking soldiery. armed
all the same with rifles of the latest
pattern, the trio of criminals were
taken in bullock carts to a valley
some five or six miles away from
Urga. This was in order that the
execution should not offend the
sight of the mythical gods who
dwell in the sacred mountain of
Bogdo Nor, which, lying to the
south of the city, is cut off from con-
tamination with humanity by the
lola river. Death is the punish
ment for the Mongol who so far for
gets his traditions as to shoot bird
or beast on Bogdo Nor, and impris-
onment for life the far worse fate of
any foreigner who should be so rash
as thus to transgress. The soldiers
looked CHASTITY enough after their in
generation. and ate greedily the
food which was offered to them
when they were taken out of the
carts. One of them shouted out ri
bald jibes to the mandarin who
was present in his official capacity;
Come out and watch us die That
is what you are here for-don't stop
skulking in that tent One of the
others remarked to the lama who
held the sacred picture of Buddha
before his eyes a moment prior to
the execution: Il don't mind dy-
ing, but | want to be a soldier when
| am born again The Mongol be-
lief in an immediate reincarnation
leads them to be entirely careless of
their dead. They throw them out
onto the hillsides. where dogs and
vultures speedily devour them.
What does ii matter?' they say.
The body is only case for the spir-
IL. and the spirit is at once reborn
into new case
81 sometimes wondered II that
was why they never washed their
| cacas .,