A thief who had stolen a watch from one of his countrymen was flogged through the Honam suburb of Canton, but the officer appointed to flog him was very corpulent, and from his great earnestness in the discharge of his duty became quite breathless before the various streets along which the culprit was sentenced to pass had been fully traversed. The person from whom the watch had been stolen, seeing that the thief might escape the full severity of his penalty, snatched the double rattan from the hand of the exhausted officer and applied it himself most unmercifully to the thief’s back. Women who are convicted of thieving are in some instances punished in this way. Occasionally a long bamboo is used in cases of petty larceny. When this is the case, however, the culprit receives his flogging in court in front of the tribunal. He is at once denuded of his trousers and the number of blows varies according to the nature of the larceny, from ten to three hundred.
Mr. Henry Norman, who witnessed a most cruel flogging in court, which left the prisoner in a pitiable state, asserts that when a policeman was called to suffer the same punishment, it was seen that he had bound strips of wood on himself to catch the full force of the bamboo. The prescribed number of strokes were administered, but the fraud was plainly apparent to the magistrate and all the spectators, and the policeman, who was none the worse for the flogging, went about his duties as usual when the ordeal was over. Spectacles of this kind, says the same authority, seem to be highly enjoyed by a Chinese audience.
Chinese Punishment
The cangue, or square and heavy wooden collar, is one of the modes by which petty offenders are punished in China. The weight varies with the offence, and they are worn from a fortnight to three months, during which time the cangue is not removed by day or night. This device inflicts severe punishment, preventing the culprit from assuming any position of rest. The name of the prisoner and the nature of his offence are written on the cangue in large letters, so that “he who runs may read,” and he is often made to stand at one of the principal gates or in some other conspicuous place as an object of universal contempt.
The cangue, or square, heavy wooden collar, is another mode by which petty offenders in China are punished. Cangues vary in weight, some being considerably larger and heavier than others. The period for which an offender is sentenced to wear this collar varies from a fortnight to three months. During the whole of this time the cangue is not removed from the neck of the prisoner either by day or by night. Its form prevents the wearer from stretching himself on the ground at full length, and to judge from the attenuated appearance of prisoners who have undergone it, the punishment must be terribly severe. The name of the lawbreaker and the nature of his offence are written on the cangue in large letters, “so that all the world may read.” The authorities often make the victim stand from sunrise to sunset at one of the principal gates or in front of one of the chief temples or public halls of the city, where he is regarded as an object of universal scorn and contempt.
Another mode of punishing a criminal is that of confining him in a cage. The cages are of different forms, the worst being too short to allow the occupants to place themselves in a recumbent position and too low to admit of their standing. To the top of one kind is attached a wooden collar or cangue by which the neck of the criminal, which it is made to fit, is firmly held. Another cage resembles the former in all respects but one. The difference consists in its being higher than its occupant, so that while his neck is held fast by the wooden collar attached to the top of the cage, the tips of his toes barely touch the floor. Indeed, the floor, which is only a few inches from the ground, is sometimes removed so that the prisoner may be suspended by the neck. This punishment almost invariably proves fatal. The victims are as a rule thieves and robbers. They are often punished by being bound to stones by means of long chains passed round their necks. The stones are not large, but sufficiently heavy to inconvenience them as they walk to and from the prison to the entrance gates of the yamun, in front of which they are daily exposed. These stones are their inseparable companions by night and by day throughout the whole period of their incarceration. In some instances they are bound to long bars of iron and are daily exposed to the scorn of all passers by.
For capital and other offences of a serious nature there are six classes of punishment. The first, called ling che, has already been mentioned. It is inflicted upon traitors, parricides, matricides, fratricides and murderers of husbands, uncles and tutors. The criminal is cut into either one hundred and twenty, seventy-two, thirty-six or twenty-four pieces. Should there be extenuating circumstances, his body, as a mark of imperial clemency, is divided into eight portions only. The punishment of twenty-four cuts is inflicted as follows: the first and second cuts remove the eyebrows; the third and fourth the shoulders; the fifth and sixth the breasts; the seventh and eighth the parts between each hand and elbow; the ninth and tenth the parts between each elbow and shoulder; the eleventh and twelfth the flesh of each thigh; the thirteenth and fourteenth the calf of each leg; the fifteenth pierces the heart; the sixteenth severs the head from the body; the seventeenth and eighteenth cut off the hands; the nineteenth and twentieth the arms; the twenty-first and twenty-second the feet; the twenty-third and twenty-fourth the legs. That of eight cuts is inflicted as follows; the first and second cuts remove the eyebrows; the third and fourth the shoulders; the fifth and sixth the breasts; the seventh pierces the heart; the eighth severs the head from the body. A great many political offenders underwent executions of the first class at Canton during the vice-royalty of His Excellency, Yeh. On the fourteenth day of December, 1864, the famous Hakka rebel leader, Tai Chee-kwei by name, was put to death at Canton in the same manner.
The second class of capital punishment, which is called chan or decapitation, is the penalty due to murderers, rebels, pirates, burglars, etc. Prisoners who are sentenced to decapitation are kept in ignorance of the hour fixed for their execution until the preceding day. Occasionally they have only a few hours’ and in some instances only a few minutes’ warning. When the time has arrived for making the condemned man ready for execution, an officer in full costume, carrying in his hand a board on which is pasted a list of the names of the prisoners who are that day to atone for their crimes, enters the prison, and in the hearing of all the prisoners assembled in the ward, reads aloud the list of the condemned. Each prisoner whose name is called at once answers to it, and he is then made to sit in a basket to be carried once more into the presence of a judge. As he is taken through the outer gate, he is interrogated through an interpreter by an official who acts on the occasion as the viceroy’s representative.
Mr. Henry Norman described in 1895 an execution of fifteen offenders of this class which he had witnessed. The condemned were carried into the place of execution in flat baskets suspended from bamboo poles, and literally dumped out, bound hand and foot. A slip of paper was stuck in the queue of each condemned man, which described the nature of the crime. These were taken out and stacked up by one of the executioners, and then the work of severing the heads began, one of the executioners holding the victim’s shoulders while the other used the knife. All of those about to be beheaded witnessed the decapitation of their comrades, and the spectators yelled with delight and frenzy. When the last head had been severed, the place was ankle-deep in blood and the executioner, who used the knife, was covered with it. The bodies were thrown into a pond and the heads were put in earthenware jars and stacked up with others surrounding this potter’s field.