Every city of the first, second, or third rank, has its proper courts and judges, and when a person is charged with an offence, torture is used to extort confession. The ordinary one, which is very acute and painful, is a kind of engine in which the hands and feet of the culprit are enclosed; and then, by means of a screw, compressed to such a degree that the wrists and ancle-bones are broken and flattened, and all the toes and fingers dislocated. Rebellion and treason are punished by cutting the criminal into ten thousand pieces—which is literally accomplished by the knife or sword. Murder is punished with death. For disobedience to parents, the punishment is very severe. The criminal is condemned to be cut into “ten thousand pieces,” and afterwards burnt. Theft is punished by the Bastinado. In this punishment, the offender lies with his face downwards, and the executioner, with a cudgel, beats him severely. After he has been thus soundly beaten, the offender arises, and, kneeling before the presiding magistrate, thanks him for his kind correction. But bribery will soften the blows, or it is not unfrequent for a substitute to be allowed, and many a poor fellow, for the sake of a little money, will kneel down and receive the punishment. The Chinese have also laws and punishments relating to form, ceremony, and dress; the manner in which an inferior bows to a superior; the terms of the card written to him, the mode in which it is to be folded, the ceremonial of visiting, are all fixed by rules. Whether a Chinese sits down or rises, whether he receives company at home, or walks abroad, there is a rule fixed, and the cane is always at hand to punish its violation. The Mandarins are the magistrates in China, and here is a picture of one of them. His tunic is gray or violet color, his trousers yellow, embroidered with gold. The Mandarins are selected from all classes of the community, and their number is said to amount to nearly 50,000. There are nine classes of Mandarins, who are distinguished by the buttons in their caps. Sometimes the Emperor confers a high and extraordinary honour on Mandarins who have performed essential service to the state, namely—“the right of wearing two peacock’s feathers in the cap, which is as great a mark of dignity as the ”Garter“ of a ”Knight Companion of the Garter“ in England.”
There are, in China, booksellers who keep shops as in England, but the greater number of booksellers are hawkers, and one of these is represented in the engraving. The books are arranged on a stall, and boxes full of others stand beside them.
The books of the vendor are usually covered with a kind of pasteboard of a green or yellow colour. Those kept in shops are generally bound in red brocade, adorned with flowers of gold and silver, and have their titles in gold letters, not on their backs, but on the exterior surface of the cover. Some works are splendidly illustrated, after the Chinese manner, by designs in colours, and others by rude but very graphic wood-cuts.
The paper which the Chinese use for printing, being extremely thin, is printed only on one side. The sheets are so folded that the two open edges go to the back when they are stitched. Thus the Chinese books are cut in the back (not in the front like ours), and the sheets are then held together by a silk lace, or merely a strip of paper twisted between the fingers. The Chinese have a variety of books, and no nation in the world can boast of such a mass of historical annals. The people are amused with a variety of the vilest trash, and there are published in quick succession, dramas, poems, and tales, some serious and some comic, but none of any great merit. They have also plays, and strange representations of various kinds, but, for the most part, of a gross or whimsical nature. The Chinese are particularly fond of puppet shows, which they have brought to a great degree of perfection, with various automatons, like our “Punch and Judy.” All ranks take delight in these amusements.
I hope in my next Annual to give you some further insight into the manners and customs of this most interesting people.
Jack and Jill.
“Jack and Jill