"Then, when children do wrong, their parents and schoolmasters are blamed?"
"Very often their faults are attributed to their bringing-up."
"Oh! oughtn't we to be careful, then, Leonard? Fancy when we do wrong people blaming father or mother!"
Leonard was then very anxious to hear more about Chinese punishments, so his father told him an occurrence that he had once witnessed.
"A very usual way of punishing small offences," he began, "is by beating with a bamboo; and whenever a mandarin finds that any one, under his jurisdiction, has transgressed, he can use the bamboo. Parents use it on their children even when they are thirty years of age. The poor Chinese culprits used to be subject to very horrible tortures, such as having their fingers or ankles squeezed until they made confession; but I believe a good many of the worst tortures have now been done away with. One in common use is the canque, which is a collar made of heavy wood, with a hole in the centre for the head to come through. It is fastened round the neck, and is worn from one to three months, preventing its prisoner from lying down day or night. The captive remains in the street instead of in prison, and is dependent upon his friends to feed him."
"What a shame!" Leonard said. "I'd like to be a magistrate in China, to put that sort of cruelty down."
A CHINESE COURT OF LAW.
CHINESE PUNISHMENT.