“If there is something to be praised in Chinese jurisprudence, the way in which the punishments are carried out is on the contrary shocking. Man is considered as a being sensitive only to physical agony and to death; Chinese legislators have not sought to restrain him by his honour, by his pride in himself, nor even by his self interest. The penal code consists mainly of the bastinado, inflicted with a thick bamboo cane, with the thick end or the thin one, and consisting of from ten up to two hundred blows, as the crime is trifling or serious, or as the object stolen is of little or of great value. The bastinado is given immediately in presence of the tribunal. The most common punishments, are, after the bastinado, the cangue, the pillory, imprisonment and perpetual exile into Tartary for mandarins who have committed political offences. We have mentioned that the High Court of Appeal alone can decide on a death sentence; but the sufferings inflicted by the orders of the inferior tribunals are so horrible, the executioners are so ingenious in varying the tortures without causing death, the management of the prisons is so hateful, and finally a man sentenced to the cangue, the pillory, or the cage is exposed to such horrible anguish, that when the death-warrant arrives from Peking, the unfortunate wretch goes cheerfully to the scaffold, as if his last day were really the day of his deliverance.
131.—CHINESE BEGGARS.
“Capital punishment, horribly varied in bygone days, is now only inflicted in three ways; strangulation, decapitation, and the slow death by stabbing.
“Strangulation is effected by means of a silken cord that two executioners pull at each end, or by an iron collar tightened by a screw, very much like the garote at present used in Spain. Strangulation by the silken cord, is reserved for the princes of the Imperial family; the iron collar is used to destroy, in the silence of the prison, those whose death it is desired to conceal.
“In public, the only mode of execution is decapitation, applied to all vulgar crimes. The preparations for this mode of death are very simple, and its action very rapid, owing to the temper and weight of the swords, and the skill of those who wield them. The guillotine never attained the lightning-like rapidity of the satellites of the dreaded Yeh, the viceroy from whom the Anglo-French delivered the province of Canton; they could strike off a hundred heads in a few moments. Their master used to boast that their skill was derived from a hundred thousand subjects of experiment he had furnished them with in less than two years.
“The slow death of stabbing is inflicted for the crimes of treason, parricide, and incest. The preparation for this mode of punishment must double the miseries of the condemned convict. Securely tied to a post, his feet and hands fastened with ropes, his head is placed in a kind of pillory, while the magistrate delegated to witness the execution of the sentence, draws from a covered basket a knife, on the handle of which is written the part of the body in which it is to be inserted. This horrible torture is continued until chance selects the heart, or some other vital part. We hasten to add, that generally the convict’s friends purchase the connivance of the magistrate, who takes care to draw at the very first venture, the knife intended for the mortal blow.
“It is little wonder that the Chinese accustomed to such penalties, and to the hideous and frequent spectacles they afford, should early become inured to the idea of death, and that even their women and children should possess in the highest degree the passive courage which enables them to meet it with calmness. For many of these poor people, death is only the welcome termination of a miserable and painful existence.
“I had the curiosity to be present at one of the last sittings of the Court, and at my request a place was reserved for me, where I could see without being seen.