WU TING FANG.
3. The beheading of a corpse of a criminal who died before execution is no longer permitted.
4. According to the old law, parents, relatives and friends of one convicted of serious crimes were subject to punishment; now the punishment is confined to the guilty party. (While the practice of including innocent relatives in the sentence seems barbarous in the extreme, it was, after all, not so different in principle from the practice of the western nations which in times of war inflict punishment indiscriminately upon innocent and guilty alike.)
5. The branding of criminals has been abandoned.
6. Corporal punishment of criminals is also abolished.
7. The torturing of accused persons during trial, except where the accused is charged with murder, and where the evidence of guilt is clear, has also been abolished. According to the Chinese law a person convicted of murder cannot be put to death until he confesses, and torture has been retained in a case of this kind as a means of compelling confession when the guilt has been otherwise established, but Mr. Wu expresses the hope that torture in such cases will be abolished in the near future.
The revision commission has also succeeded in obtaining an imperial decree ordering the construction of more modern prisons, requiring the inspection of prisoners and compelling humane treatment. Formerly relief from cruel treatment could only be secured by paying the official in charge.
The commission is now working upon a code of procedure and intends among other things the recommendation of a system of trial by jury, the admission of lawyers to practice in the courts and the relieving of prisoners and witnesses from the humiliating practice of kneeling in court.
In order to secure competent judges and lawyers for the carrying out of the new code, the commission has obtained the sanction of the government for the establishment of a law school at Pekin (the site has already been purchased), and the high schools and colleges of the various provinces have been instructed to add law to the curriculum of their studies.