A third punishment is called nam-kow, or death by strangulation. This is inflicted on kidnappers and all thieves who with violence steal articles the value of which amounts to five hundred dollars and upward. The manner in which this form of capital punishment is inflicted is as follows:—A cross is erected in the centre of the execution ground, at the foot of which a stone is placed, and upon this the prisoner stands. His body is made fast to the perpendicular beam of the cross by a band passing round the waist, while his arms are bound to the transverse beam. The executioner then places round the neck of the prisoner a thin but strong piece of twine, which he tightens to the utmost and then ties in a firm knot round the upper part of the perpendicular beam. Death by this cruel process is very slow and is apparently attended with extreme agony. The body remains on the cross during a period of twenty-four hours, the sheriff before leaving the execution ground taking care to attach his seal to the knot of the twine which passes round the neck of the malefactor.
The fourth class of punishment is called man-kwan, or transportation for life. The criminals who are thus punished are embezzlers, forgers, etc. The places of banishment in the north of China and Tartary are named respectively Hack-loong-kong, Elee Ning-koo-tap and Oloo-muk-tsze. All convicts from the midland and southern provinces are sent to one or the other of these places, where the unhappy men are employed in a great measure according to their former circumstances of life. Those who are of a robust nature and who have been accustomed to agricultural pursuits are daily occupied in reclaiming and cultivating waste lands. Others, more especially those who have been sent from the southern provinces, where the heat in summer is almost tropical, are, in consequence of the severity of the cold which prevails in northern latitudes, made to work in government iron foundries. The aged and those who have not been accustomed to manual labour are daily employed in sweeping the state temples and other public buildings.
The fifth class of punishment is termed man-low, or transportation for ten or fifteen years. The criminals of this class are petty burglars and persons who harbour those who have broken the laws. Such offenders are generally sent to the midland provinces of the empire, where the arrangements for convict labour are similar to those of the penal settlements of the north. Convicts of this class who are natives of the midland provinces are sent either to the eastern, western or southern provinces of the empire. The barbarous practice of tattooing the cheeks is also resorted to with these prisoners. The sixth class is called man-tow, or transportation for three years. A punishment of this nature is the portion of gamblers, salt smugglers, etc. A convict of this class is transported to one of the provinces immediately bordering upon that of which he is a native or in which his crime was committed.
Oppression by the ruling class was always rife in China, and instances might be multiplied recording the cruel misusage of inferiors by the mandarins. One case in which ample vengeance was exacted by the aggrieved victim may be quoted here. The story is told by Lady Susan Townley in her “Chinese Note Book.”
“A well-to-do farmer called Chiang-lo lived happily on his estate with a pretty wife whom he loved, until one day, as ill luck would have it, a rich Mandarin passed that way, who, seeing the fair dame, straightway desired her. Anxious to get rid of the husband by fair means or foul, he trumped up a charge against him, and the farmer was condemned ‘to be a slave to a soldier,’ which meant that he would be marched in heavy chains from Peking to the northern frontier of China, cruelly beaten at every station (they occur about every eighteen miles), and ill-treated at will by the soldier in charge of him. This sentence is usually equivalent to death, for few can survive the hardships of such a journey, the fatigue, heat, cold, hunger and torture. But our friend with hatred in his heart resolved to live in order to be revenged upon his enemy. So he bore all his sufferings with superhuman courage, and finally arrived at his destination on the frontier, where he was put to work in a mine.” After he had been there about three years His Majesty Kwang Hsu assumed the reins of government, and accorded a general pardon to all criminals. Thus in a night Chiang-lo recovered his freedom, and without a moment’s hesitation set off to trudge back to Peking. “This time there was hope in his heart for he meant to kill his enemy and the wife who had betrayed him. When he saw her again, however, all his old love for her returned and though she refused to go with him, and though he knew that if he killed them both, Chinese law would account him guiltless, whereas if he killed her lover and spared her, he would be considered guilty of murder, and would have to bear the penalty, he did not hesitate one moment, but left her and went to find her seducer.
“For days he tracked him about the town, waiting for a favourable opportunity. At last it came, as his rival passed him in the deep embrasure of the Chien-men gate. Springing from his place of concealment he challenged him to fight, but the coward refused. Then Chiang-lo ... drew his knife and repeatedly stabbed him in the heart. When he saw his enemy lying dead at his feet, the apathy of despair fell upon him. Wiping his knife on his sleeve he bowed his head, and turning his steps to the nearest police station calmly gave himself up. A few weeks later he was beheaded.”
It is interesting to read that the prevailing method of punishment in China in the seventeenth century differed little from that in force at a very recent date. In the memoirs of the Jesuit Louis le Comte, published in 1698, he says: “They have several ways of inflicting death. Mean and ignoble persons have their heads cut off, for in China the separation of the head from the body is disgraceful. On the contrary, persons of quality are strangled, which among them is a death of more credit.... Rebels and traitors are punished with the utmost severity; that is, to speak as they do, they cut them into ten thousand pieces. For after that the executioner hath tied them to a post, he cuts off the skin all round their forehead which he tears by force till it hangs over their eyes, that they may not see the torments they are to endure. Afterwards he cuts their bodies in what places he thinks fit, and when he is tired of this barbarous employment, he leaves them to the tyranny of their enemies and the insults of the mob.”
Cruelty, which is one of the strongest characteristics of the Chinese nature, manifests itself not only in the application of criminal law, but with a peculiar callousness they delight to torture dumb animals and enjoy witnessing the sufferings of children and adults of their own race. A common practice of the professional kidnapper is to blind a child after stealing it, and then carry it away to another town and sell it for a professional beggar. Infant life is still being destroyed by parents in some districts of China, and the abominable custom is difficult to eradicate, as the children are simply abandoned and left to starve, and if the crime is discovered it is difficult to prove deliberate murder.
Cases have been known of Chinese boatmen refusing to rescue persons who had thrown themselves overboard from a sinking craft and were drowning, unless they agreed to pay an exorbitant sum asked as the price of rescue. They have even been known to look on passively while their fellow-countrymen were struggling for life in the water, without raising a hand to help them.
It is but natural to expect that in a country where such occurrences are common, the punishments inflicted on the really guilty should exceed anything known in the practices of the enlightened nations of to-day.