A MANDARIN JUDGE DELIVERING SENTENCE.
"When we went into the court-room, a man had just been sentenced to receive twenty blows of the bamboo, and the sentence was immediately carried out. He was ordered to lie down with his face to the floor; his back was then stripped, and while his legs and arms were held by attendants, the executioner laid on the twenty blows with a bamboo stick about six feet long and two inches wide. One side of the stick was rounded and the other was flat; the flesh was blistered at every stroke, or raised in a great puff, and it is certain that the man must be some time in getting well. He did not scream or make the least outcry, but took his punishment patiently, and was raised to his feet at its end. He bowed to the judge, and, perhaps, thanked him for the attention he had received, and was then led away to make room for some one else.
"The Chinese don't seem to have any nerves compared with what we have. They do not suffer so much as we do under tortures, and this is perhaps one of the reasons why they are so much more cruel than the people of Europe and America. For example, it would nearly kill a European to travel a week in carts such as we saw on the road from Tien-tsin to Pekin. The Chinese don't seem to mind it at all; and the best proof that they do not is that they have never invented any better or more comfortable way of travelling, or tried to improve their roads. And it is the same with their punishments in the courts. They don't care much for whippings, though it is not at all probable that they like them, and the only things that they appear to fear very much are the punishments that are prolonged. There are a good many of these, and I will tell you about some of the most prominent and best known.
"Several times we have seen men with wooden collars three or four feet square, and with a hole in the centre, where the poor fellow's neck comes through. It is made of plank about two inches thick, and you can see that the load is a heavy one for a man to carry. He cannot bring his arms to his head; and if he has no friends to feed him, or no money to pay some one else to do so, he must starve. On the upper surface of the plank is painted the name of the criminal, together with the crime he has committed and the time he has been ordered to wear the collar. This instrument is called a 'cangue,' and is said to be in use all over China from one end of the country to the other.
"There is a mode of torture which is chiefly used to extort confessions from persons accused of crime, and the result of its use is said to be that many a man has been induced to confess crimes of which he was entirely innocent, in order to escape from the terrible pain which is produced. The victim is compelled to stand against a post, and his cue is tied to it so that he cannot get away. His arms are tied to a cross-beam, and then little rods are placed between his fingers in such a way that every finger is enclosed. The rods are so arranged that by pulling a string the pressure on the fingers is increased, and the pain very soon becomes so great that most men are unable to endure it. If you want to know just how a little of it feels, I advise you to put one of your fingers between two lead-pencils and then squeeze the pencils together. You won't keep doing so very long.
SQUEEZING THE FINGERS.
"They squeeze the ankles in much the same way, by making the man kneel on the ground, with his ankles in a frame of three sticks that are fastened together at one end by a cord like that of the finger-squeezer. Then, when all is ready, they pull at the cord and draw the sticks nearer to each other, so that pressure is brought on the ankles. The pain is intense, and the most demure Chinaman is not able to stand it without shrinking. This mode of torture, like the other, is used to make prisoners confess the crimes of which they are accused, and they generally confess them. It is said that witnesses may be subjected to the ankle torture, but with the modification in their favor that only one ankle can be squeezed at a time. Very kind, isn't it?