Arizona republican., 1914-02-15
ID HIM
 WHO HITS PIPE
Proclamations Are Issued ill Chinese Provinces An nouncing Capital Punish ment for Opium Smokers Will Be Enforced
ASSOCIATED PRESS DISPATCH l


 i PEKING, Feb 13-Proclamations ! announcing the death penalty for i smokers of opium have been promul- i gated, according to reports from vari- ous provinces. Although definite cases { of executions for this breach of the law seldom come to special notice, it is reported from Wu Chang that smoker ! among the soldiers of the garrison there was caught indulging in the habit anG after trial" before a court made up cf his comrades he was sentenced to ini~ mediate execution and was shot u l death.
 l This is one of many instances of the fact that courts of law are not em- | ployed in China in cases where they would be in western countries. An at tempt is being made now by the gov ernment of Yuan Shih-kai to institute law courts which will gradually render unnecessary the placing of autocratic power in the hands of the local gover- nors.
 | Numerous orders have been issued recently from the presidents office, de- signed to reform and reorganize the judiciary. The following is an extract | from one mandate:-
 "There never have been institutions for training judicial officers. The choice of judges has not been made with care and the salaries are small Consequently inefficient men are placed on the bench and corruption | prevails. In extreme cases corruption is practiced jointly by the judges and | barristers, and the evils thus brought about are worse than those of the past dynasty. Good citizens are usually meek and feeble. while bad characters are cruel and strong. These two ele- ments can be made to live peaceably i together only through the operation of | the law. But if the law fails to pro- | tect the weak from the strong then anarchy ensues. Confucius says that if | justice is not impartially administered ! the people will not be able to dis 1 tnguish what is right and what is l wrong and that if they fail to make such distinction there can be no stable i government. In Picking and the prov l inces there are some good judges, but there are many who are inefficient and unprincipled. who. instead of protecting l the people, employ their offices for cor rupt practices. I, the president, have l inquired into the feelings of the peo. | pie, and am painfully aware of their 1 grievances. It is my intention thor | oughly to clean up the system and start 1 afresh'
 The report has come from the interior 1 of the Fukien province that the un- named official who attempted to de- ceive the central government as to the death of General Hwang Liang has been beheaded Hwang Liang is the brigand chieftain who during the anti Manchu revolt proclaimed himself the ''16th Emperor of the Mings", the pre- | Manchu dynasty and who recently l drove a number of American mission aries out of the interior of the F'ullien province. The American legation was soon afterward informed that the bri- 1 gand leader has suddenly ceased to exist" but announce1ment is made in Shanghai dispatch that the coffin sup
 posedly containing the body of the emperor" has been found filled with rubbish.
 The object of the trick may have been to obtain reward or to escape the diff ficult and dangerous task of capturing or killing the outlaw. Chinese brigands are not easy to catch. The rural police system is very feeble, especially at this time of transition from one form of government to another When hard
 pressed by soldiers the outlaws vanish
 into fastnesses easy to defend, or dis
 appear among the country people, who
 are made to hold their tongues by
 threats of terrible vengeance. It is
 said that the followers of White Wolf
 in Honan secrete their arms and lay
 aside their fine clothes and become, to
 all appearances. ragged farmers and
 villagers when expediency demands. It
 is announced that S10,000, which is an
 enormous fortune in China, is to be
 offered for the capture or death of this
 notorious leader
 President Yuan Shih-kai seems to
 have struck popular note in his now
 celebrated anti gambling mandate. The
 Shenpao, an independent paper of
 Shanghai, praising the stand taken by
 the government in this and other mat
 ters of social and political importance,
 says:
 "Without first eradicating the evil
 habit gambling in Peking it would be
 futile to discuss politics or reforms.
 What the government has done was
 but what We expected it to do, other
 wise it would have lost all standing
 ground