The uncivilized races of men in all countries of the world; vol. 2 of 2 / Being a comprehensive account of their manners and customs, and of their physical, social, mental, moral and religious characteristics

by J. G. Wood

The most common punishment in China is that of the cangue, a sort of moveable pillory. A piece of wood, some four feet square and nearly four inches in thickness, has a hole in the middle, through which the culprit’s head is passed. The machine opens with a hinge, and when closed is locked, and a placard designating the offence is pasted on it. As long as the cangue is worn, the unhappy delinquent cannot feed himself, so that he would be starved to death were he not fed by casual contributions. Fortunately, it is considered a meritorious action to feed a prisoner in the cangue, so that little risk of actual starvation is run, and the principal terror of the cangue lies in the pain caused by carrying such a weight upon the neck and shoulders. This instrument is often worn for weeks and sometimes for three months, which is the extent of its legal use.

Finger squeezing is another torture which is frequently used. Four pieces of bamboo are tied loosely together at one end, and a string passes through the other ends, so arranged that by drawing it they can be pulled closely together. The fingers are introduced between the bamboos, and by pulling at the string they can be crushed almost to pieces. This torture is often employed by the mandarins, when endeavoring to extort money from persons whom they suspect of concealing their wealth. The ankles are squeezed after a similar fashion, only in this case the bamboos are much larger. Both these modes of torture are shown in the [illustration] on the next page.

Most of the so-called minor tortures, i. e. those which are not directly aimed at life, are employed for the purpose of extorting money. The fact is, the mandarins who are set over districts only have a limited term of office, and may, indeed, be transferred at any time. As during their term of office they have to make up a certain sum demanded by their superiors, and have also to keep up considerable state on a nominal salary, it follows that they oppress the people to the utmost of their power, looking upon them merely in the light of tax-producing animals. It is, therefore, no wonder that a Chinaman of any ability strives for literary rank, and the privilege of wearing the button, which exempts him from arrest except by imperial order.

Beating with the bamboo is another common punishment. There are two kinds of bamboo for this purpose, the small and the large; the latter being capable of producing death if used with severity. Indeed, even the lesser bamboo, if the blows be struck with the edge, instead of the flat, bruises the flesh so completely as to bring on mortification, of which the sufferer is sure to die in a few days. This punishment is chiefly used by the peculative mandarins, in order to extort money, and is employed for men and women alike; the only difference being that the man is thrown prostrate on the ground, while the woman suffers in a kneeling posture.

A man of forethought, however, never suffers much from the bamboo, and, if possible, nothing at all. In the former case, he bribes the executioner, who strikes so as to produce a very effective sounding blow, but in reality inflicts very little injury. In the latter case, he bribes a man to act as a substitute, and, just as the first blow is about to be struck, some of the officers, who are also bribed, get between the judge and the culprit, while the latter rolls out of the way, and the substitute takes his place. A similar ruse is enacted at the completion of the punishment. It may seem strange that any one should act as a substitute in such a business; but in China men care little for their skins, or even for their lives, and it is possible to purchase a substitute even for capital punishment, the chief difficulty being not to bribe the substitute, but to find enough money to bribe all the officials, who must act in concert.

Powerful as they may be, the mandarins have not all the power of life and death, though they can inflict punishments which practically lead to the same result. Mr. Milne mentions a case of this kind. Two men had been arrested in the act of robbing a house during a fire. This is rightly held to be the most heinous kind of theft, and is generally punished with decapitation. The mandarin of the district had not the power to inflict death, but contrived to manage that the men should die. Accordingly, he had two tall bamboo cages made, placed a man inside each, and tied him by his tail to the top bars of the cage. The cages were placed in the open air, in charge of officers, who would not allow any communication with the offenders. The natural consequence was, that privation of food, drink, sleep, and rest of any kind, together with exposure to the elements, killed the men as effectually as the sword of the executioner.

A modification of this mode of punishment is by covering the top of the cage with a board through a hole in which the head of the sufferer passes. It is, in fact, a fixed cangue. The top of the cage is adjusted so that the man is forced to stand on tiptoe as he is suspended by the neck. His hands being bound behind him, relief is impossible. This mode of punishment is [shown] in the last figure but one, on the right-hand side.

The other figures speak for themselves, except that of the kneeling figure with snakes coiled round his body. These snakes are tubes of soft metal, fashioned in the shape of snakes with open mouths. They are coiled round the naked limbs and body of the sufferer, and boiling water is then poured into them, producing the most horrible torture.

As to capital punishments, they are inflicted in various ways. The mode that is thought to be the least terrible is the command to commit suicide, because in that case they can avoid the mangling of the body, and so make their appearance in the spirit world whole and entire. This is a privilege only accorded to officers of very high rank, and is conferred upon them by sending the “silken cord.” No cord is really sent, but the mandate implies the instrument of death. When it is received, the doomed man takes some of his nearest relatives and most valued friends to his house, fastens the silken cord to a beam, places himself on a stool, passes the noose round his neck, and then leaps off the stool, and so dies. Officers of lower rank, when they see that they will probably be condemned to death, generally anticipate their sentence by hanging themselves on their own responsibility.

For criminals of no status, strangulation is the mode of death most preferred. It is accomplished in a manner exactly resembling the Spanish garrote. The criminal stands with his back to a post, through which a hole is bored at the level of his neck. The two ends of a cord are passed through the hole, the loop embracing the man’s neck. The ends are then twisted round a stick, and, by a few rapid turns of the stick, the man is killed. The rapidity of the process is such that Mr. Lockhart mentions an instance where he and a friend saw a file of soldiers coming along, carrying a pole and a pinioned man in a basket. They stopped, lashed the pole to an upright post, took the man out of the basket, tied him to the pole, and strangled him before the foreigners could find out what they were doing. The strange part of the business was that the officials had bribed the apparent culprit and his friends, as they wanted to make the foreigners believe that he was an opium smuggler, and that they were doing their best to stop the trade. Truly it is a strange country.