A thousand miles on an elephant in the Shan States

by Holt S. Hallett

The Rev. S. J. Smith, who edited a newspaper in Bangkok, gave me an instance of the extortion practised in the courts in the case of Sang, his head-printer. Six years before, Sang quarrelled and came to blows with a man, and each laid a complaint against the other in the court. Since then the two men had been called up periodically, forced to pay court fees, and then sent back without their case being heard. It was likely to remain on the lists as long as money could be squeezed out of the men. The law as administered in Siam, evidently plays with its victims as a cat does with a mouse. Other missionaries gave me similar instances which had come under their notice.

From a European inspector of police in Siamese service, I learnt the method by which confessions were extorted in the police courts. If a man is arrested on suspicion of theft or other crimes, he is at once put in irons, and when brought before the magistrate, is questioned very roughly by the magistrate and his understrappers, and often asked most insolent questions having nothing to do with the case. If the truth of his answers is doubted, his face is slapped with the sole of a shoe until sometimes the blood flows from his mouth. If he does not then allow that he is guilty, his head is fastened in the centre of a bamboo yoke formed like a short ladder, his hands are tied in front of him to the yoke, one end of which rests on the ground, and he is made to sit down with his body inclined forwards and his legs outstretched. A rope is then fastened to his ankles and to a peg in front, so as to prevent him from bending his knees. Another rope is tied round his waist and to a peg some distance to the rear, and tightened so as to stretch the skin of his back as tight as a drum-head. He is then thrashed above the waist with a long cane, getting fifteen or twenty strokes. If he still avers that he is innocent, the strokes are increased to thirty: this is considered to be sufficient torture for the first day. The cane is drawn along the back like a whip, blood is drawn with the first stroke, and his or her back is completely lacerated at the end of the punishment. All the while the thrashing is going on, the magistrate, jailers, clerks, and other officials sit round about jeering at the man, and telling him he had better confess. The performance is varied by striking the presumed criminal on the tender parts of the hips and arms with a piece of raw hide the thickness of an inch, twisted like a rope, which, though as hard as iron, is slightly pliable. This often occurs between the lashes—ten lashes, then a hammering.

After his first dose he is left to cogitate for a whole day whether he will allow himself guilty or not. Then he is had up again into the yard of the court where the case is being tried, and trussed up as formerly and again flogged, getting ten or fifteen lashes. Should he still say that he is innocent, the number of blows is completed to thirty altogether, and he receives the usual intermittent hammerings. His fingers are clasped and beaten to a jelly with the hide, and if he does not then confess himself guilty, he is allowed another day’s rest, after which he receives another ten strokes, and is again interrogated. If he is still obstinate, the tally of thirty strokes is completed, he being interrogated and hammered between each five stripes. This makes ninety stripes, the full number that a magistrate is allowed to give.

The above punishment happens when a man or woman is had up on suspicion. If the tortured person does not confess before the close of ninety strokes, he or she is considered to be innocent. According to my informant, such a case seldom happens, for nearly invariably innocent folk confess to having committed the crime merely to save themselves from the balance of the punishment. If on the third day the number of the strokes is verging on the ninety, and the victim is still obdurate, a piece of flat wood, one and a half inch broad, and a quarter of an inch thick, is placed on each side of the head above the ear across the temples, and the two ends of each are brought together and fastened like a loop-spring. The top of the bow is then struck. The vibration is nearly equal to striking the temple, and then passes through the whole system, causing great agony. This form of torture is said to occur at least once a week in Bangkok.

After each day’s punishment, the bamboo yoke is taken off, and the victim lies face downwards, whilst a friend or another prisoner tramples on the wounds to keep the swellings down: a wet cloth or wet rag, if handy, is then thrown over his back. If the ninety strokes are received by a prisoner without his confessing, he is still, though against law, kept in jail on suspicion to the day of his death, which, as the jails are the foulest holes that can be imagined, generally occurs within a few months. This unlawful imprisonment happens because the authorities do not wish it to be known that they have tortured an innocent person.

The best-kept and most commodious prison in Bangkok is said to be that of the Mixed Court, which I visited in the company of a member of one of the consulates. On our entry we found amongst the manacled and chained inhabitants—men and women sleep in the same den with a chain run through their leg-irons at night—a little girl, nine years of age, who had been in prison more than a year for losing a small boat she had been left in charge of,—a boat that had been swept away by the swift current of the river whilst the child had been thoughtlessly playing in the neighbourhood. On inquiry I learnt that the child would not be released until the boat was paid for, or until the hard-hearted prosecutor, who had perhaps forgotten her existence, chose to forgive the debt. If we had not visited the prison, in which the stench was so bad that we had frequently to go outside to get a breath of fresh air, the child would have rotted in that deadly atmosphere, amongst her perhaps equally innocent companions, until kindly released by death.

The state of morality amongst the officials in Bangkok may be judged from the fact that many of the princes and nobles treat the brothel-keepers, some of whom wear his Majesty’s uniform, as bosom friends, and are seen riding in the same carriage with them. The description of the brothels in Bangkok, as given to me by one of the police inspectors, was most revolting. The prostitutes are all slaves, having been sold by their nearest relations in order to pay their gambling debts, or to aid their parents who are in the clutches of the law, the parents promising to buy them back as soon as they can. As a rule, they are said to be far more modest and particular than the same class of women in Europe.

Previous to being sold into a brothel, the girl has to be taken to the Lord Mayor’s office, where she is asked if she consents to become a prostitute. Often, although hardly able to speak for tears, they dare not refuse, and a mere gesture is taken for consent. Their relations are allowed to flog them within an inch of their life, and if they do not die within fifteen days of their flogging, their death is not considered to have been caused by it. There is therefore no chance for a girl to escape her doom in the brothel. On being sold she has to declare that she was born before 1868 (the year when the king came to the throne), for otherwise she could not be sold for more than two guineas (22 ticals). The law is easily evaded, like every other law in Siam. If a girl says she is thirty-three or thirty-four when she is only fifteen, the officials would not take the trouble to question her assertion, and if they did, their conscience would soon be satisfied with a small bribe.

Every night when the house is closed, the inmates sit in a circle on the floor and sing or chant a prayer for their health and prosperity and for that of their owner. This in most houses is compulsory, but it becomes habitual to the girls. Each night one or two of the girls must, turn and turn about, provide oil for the lamps, and flowers for decorating the rooms, out of any presents they have received. If one of them has received no presents, she is considered by her owner to have been lax in her blandishments, and receives a good flogging. The howls of these poor creatures, together with the whish of the cane, is heard through the city in the early hours of the morning.

The magistrates in Bangkok have the reputation of being the biggest liars in the country, and the police are said to be the greatest thieves. So unsafe are the people from false charges and lawsuits, that they willingly become the slaves of the powerful in order to gain their protection. Thus, according to the inspector, not five per cent of the Siamese in Bangkok are in possession of their freedom.