Chapter XLI: Section CLXII: of the code for the purpose of interdicting it; since

then it has apparently changed its designation from the _Pih-lien kiao_, or ‘Water-lily sect,’ to the _Tien-tí hwui_ or _San-hoh hwui_, _i.e._, ‘Triad society,’ though both names still exist, the former in the northern, the latter in the maritime provinces and Indian Archipelago; their ramifications take also other appellations. The object of these combinations is to overturn the reigning dynasty, and in putting this prominently forward they engage many to join them. About the beginning of the century a wide-spread rebellion broke out in the north-western and middle provinces, which was put down after eight years’ war, attended with desolation and bloodshed; since that time the Water-lily sect has not been so often spoken of. The Triad society has extended itself along the coasts, but it is not popular, owing more than anything else to its illegality, and the intimidation and oppression employed toward those who will not join it. The members have secret regulations and signs, and uphold and assist each other both in good and bad acts, but, as might be inferred from their character, screening evil doers from just punishment oftener than relieving distressed members. The original designs of the association may have been good, but what was allowable in them soon degenerated into a systematic plan for plunder and aim at power. The government of Hongkong enacted in 1845 that any Chinese living in that colony who was ascertained to belong to the Triad society should be declared guilty of felony, be imprisoned for three years, and after branding expelled the colony. These associations, if they cause the government much trouble by interfering with its operations, in no little degree, through the overbearing conduct of the leaders, uphold it by showing the people what may be expected if they should ever get the upper hand.[262]

~MEMORIAL UPON OFFICIAL OPPRESSION.~

The evils of mal-administration are to be learned chiefly from the memorials of censors, and although they may color their statements a little, very gross inaccuracies would be used to their own disadvantage, and contradicted by so many competitors, that most of their statements may be regarded as having some foundation. An unknown person in Kwangtung memorialized the Emperor in 1838 concerning the condition of that province, and drew a picture of the extortions of the lower agents of government that needs no illustrations to deepen its darkness or add force to its complaints. An extract from each of the six heads into which the memorial is divided will indicate the principal sources of popular insurrection in China, besides the exhibition they give of the tyranny of the officers.

In his preface, after the usual laudation of the beneficence and popularity of the monarch, the memorialist proceeds to express his regret that the imperial desires for the welfare of his subjects should be so grievously thwarted by the villany of his officers. After mentioning the calamities which had visited the province in the shape of freshets, insurrections, and conflagrations, he says that affairs generally had become so bad as to compel his Majesty to send commissioners to Canton repeatedly in order to regulate them. “If such as this be indeed the state of things,” he inquires, “what wonder is it if habits of plunder characterize the people, or the clerks and under officers of the public courts, as well as village pettifoggers, lay themselves out on all occasions to stir up quarrels and instigate false accusations against the good?” He recommends reform in six departments, under each of which he thus specifies the evils to be remedied:

_First._--In the department of police there is great negligence and delay in the decision of judicial cases. Cases of plunder are very common, most of which are committed by banditti under the designations of Triad societies, Heaven and Earth brotherhoods, etc. These men carry off persons to extort a ransom, falsely assume the character of policemen, and in simulated revenue cutters pass up and down the rivers, plundering the boats of travellers and forcibly carrying off the women. Husbandmen are obliged to pay these robbers an “indemnity,” or else as soon as the crops are ripe they come and carry off the whole harvest. In the precincts of the metropolis, where their contiguity to the tribunals prevents their committing depredations in open day, they set fire to houses during the night, and under the pretence of saving and defending the persons and property carry off both of them; hence, of late years, calamitous fires have increased in frequency, and the bands of robbers multiplied greatly. In cases of altercations among the villagers, who can only use their local patois, it rests entirely with the clerks to interpret the evidence; and when the magistrate is lax or pressed with business, they have the evidence pre-arranged and join with bullies and strife-makers to subvert right and wrong, fattening themselves upon bribes extorted under the names of “memoranda of complaints,” “purchases of replies,” etc., and retarding indefinitely the decision of cases. They also instigate thieves to bring false accusations against the good, who are thereby ruined by legal expenses. While the officers of the government and the people are thus separated, how can it be otherwise than that appeals to the higher tribunals should be increased and litigation and strife prevail?

_Second._--Magistrates overrate the taxes with a view to a deduction for their own benefit, and excise officers connive at non-payment. The revenue of Kwangtung is paid entirely in money, and the magistrates, instead of taking the commutation at a regular price of about five dollars for one hundred and fifty pounds of rice, have compelled the people to pay nine dollars and over, because the inundation and bad harvests had raised the price of grain. In order to avoid this extortion the police go to the villagers and demand a douceur, when they will get them off from all payment. But the imperial coffers are not filled by this means, and the people are by and by forced to pay up their arrearages, even to the loss of most of their possessions.

_Third._--There is great mismanagement of the granaries, and instead of being any assistance to the people in time of scarcity, they are only a source of peculation for those who are charged with their oversight.

_Fourth._--The condition of the army and navy is a disgrace; illicit traffic is not prevented, nor can insurrections be put down. The only care of the officers is to obtain good appointments, and reduce the actual number of soldiers below the register in order that they may appropriate the stores. The cruisers aim only to get fees to allow the prosecution of the contraband traffic, nor will the naval officers bestir themselves to recover the property of plundered boats, but rather become the protectors of the lawless and partakers of their booty. Robberies are so common on the rivers that the traders from the island of Hainan, and Chauchau near Fuhkien, prefer to come by sea, but the revenue cutters overhaul them under pretence of searching for contraband articles, and practise many extortions.

_Fifth._--The monopoly of salt needs to be guarded more strictly, and the private manufacture of salt stopped, for thereby the revenue from this source is materially diminished.

_Sixth._--The increase of smuggling is so great, and the evils flowing from it so multiplied, that strong measures must be taken to repress it. Traitorous Chinese combine with depraved foreigners to set the laws at defiance, and dispose of their opium and other commodities for the pure silver. In this manner the country is impoverished and every evil arises, the revenues of the customs are diminished by the unnecessary number of persons employed and by the fees they receive for connivance. If all these abuses can be remedied, “it will be seen that when there are men to rule well, nothing can be found beyond the reach of their government.”

~FREQUENCY OF ROBBERY AND DAKOITY.~

The chief efforts of officials are directed to put down banditti, and maintain such a degree of peace as will enable them to collect the revenue and secure the people in the quiet possession of their property; but the people are too ready to resist their rulers, and this brings into operation a constant struggle of opposing desires. One side gets into the habit of resisting even the proper requisitions of the officers, who, on their part, endeavor in every way to reimburse their outlay in bribes to their superiors; and the combined action of the two proves an insurmountable impediment to the attainment of even that degree of security a Chinese officer wishes. The general commission of robbery and dakoity, and the prevalence of bands of thieves, therefore proves the weakness of the government, not the insurrectionary disposition of the people. In one district of Hupeh the governor reported in 1828 that “very few of the inhabitants have any regular occupation, and their dispositions are exceedingly ferocious; they fight and kill each other on every provocation. In their villages they harbor thieves who flee from other districts, and sally forth again to plunder.” In the northern parts of Kwangtung the people have erected high and strongly built houses to which they flee for safety from the attacks of robbers. These bands sometimes fall upon each other, and the feudal animosities of clanship adding fuel and rage to the rivalry of partisan warfare, the destruction of life and property is great. Occasionally the people zealously assist their rulers to apprehend them, though their exertions depend altogether upon the energy of the incumbent; an officer in Fuhkien is recommended for promotion because he had apprehended one hundred and seventy-three persons, part of a band of robbers which had infested the department for years, and tried and convicted one thousand one hundred and sixty criminals, most or all of whom were probably executed.

In 1821 there were four hundred robbers taken on the borders of Fuhkien; in 1827 two hundred were seized in the south of the province, and forty-one more brought to Canton from the eastward. The governor offered $1,000 reward for the capture of one leader, and $3,000 for another. The judge of the province put forth a proclamation upon the subject in the same year, in which he says there were four hundred and thirty undecided cases of robbery by brigands then on the calendar; and in 1846 there were upward of two thousand waiting his decision, for each of which there were perhaps five or six persons in prison or under constraint until the case was settled. These bands prowl in the large cities and commit great cruelties. In 1830 a party of five hundred openly plundered a rich man’s house in the western suburbs of Canton; and in Shunteh, south of the city, $600 were paid for the ransom of two persons carried off by them. The ex-governor, in 1831, was attacked by them near the Mei ling pass on his departure from Canton, and plundered of about ten thousand dollars. The magistrates of Hiangshan district, south of Canton, were ordered by their superiors the same year to apprehend five hundred of the robbers. Priests sometimes harbor gangs in their temples and divide the spoils with them, and occasionally go out themselves on predatory excursions. No mercy is shown these miscreants when they are taken, but the multiplication of executions has no effect in deterring them from crime.

~DIFFICULTY IN COLLECTING TAXES.~

Cruelty to individual prisoners does not produce so much disturbance to the general peace of the community as the forcible attempts of officers to collect taxes. The people have the impression that their rulers exact more than is legal, and consequently consider opposition to the demands of the tax-gatherer as somewhat justifiable, which compels, of course, more stringent measures on the part of the authorities, whose station depends not a little on their punctuality in remitting the taxes. Bad harvests, floods, or other public calamities render the people still more disinclined to pay the assessments. In 1845 a serious disturbance arose near Ningpo on this account, which with unimportant differences could probably be paralleled in every prefecture in the land. The people of Funghwa hien having refused to pay an onerous tax, the prefect of Ningpo seized three literary men of the place, who had been deputed to collect it, and put them in prison; this procedure so irritated the gentry that the candidates at the literary examination which occurred at Funghwa soon afterward, on being assembled at the public hall before the _chíhien_, rose upon him and beat him severely. They were still further incensed against him from having recently detected him in deceitful conduct regarding a petition they had made at court to have their taxes lightened; he had kept the answer and pocketed the difference. He was consequently superseded by another magistrate, and a deputy of the intendant of circuit was sent with the new incumbent to restore order. But the deputy, full of his importance, carried himself so haughtily that the excited populace treated him in the same manner, and he barely escaped with his life to Ningpo. The intendant and prefect, finding matters rising to such a pitch, sent a detachment of twelve hundred troops to keep the peace, but part of these were decoyed within the walls and attacked with such vigor that many of them were made prisoners, a colonel and a dozen privates killed, and two or three hundred wounded or beaten, and all deprived of their arms. In this plight they returned to Ningpo, and, as the distance is not great, apprehensions were entertained lest the insurgents should follow up their advantage by organizing themselves and marching upon the city to seize the prefect. The officers sent immediately to Hangchau for assistance, from whence the governor sent a strong force of ten thousand men to restore order, and soon after arrived himself. He demanded three persons to be given up who had been active in fomenting the resistance, threatening in case of non-compliance that he would destroy the town; the prefect and his deputy from the intendant’s office were suspended and removed to another post. These measures restored quiet to a considerable extent.[263]

The existence of such evils in Chinese society would rapidly disorganize it were it not for the conservative influence upon society of early education and training in industry. The government takes care to avail itself of this better element in public opinion, and grounds thereon a basis of action for the establishment of good order. But this, and ten thousand similar instances, only exhibit more strongly how great a work there is to be done before high and low, people and rulers, will understand their respective duties and rights; before they will, on the one hand, pay that regard to the authority of their rulers which is necessary for the maintenance of good order, and, on the other, resist official tyranny in preserving their own liberties.

If the character of the officers, therefore, be such as has been briefly shown--open to bribery, colluding with criminals, sycophantic toward superiors, and cruel to the people; and the constituents of society present so many repulsive features--opposing clans engaged in deadly feuds, bandits scouring the country to rob, policemen joining to oppress, truth universally disregarded, selfishness the main principle of action, and almost every disorganizing element but imperfectly restrained from violent outbreaks and convulsions, it will not be expected that the regular proceedings of the courts and the execution of the laws will prove on examination to be any better than the materials of which they are composed. As civil and criminal cases are all judged by one officer, one court tries nearly all the questions which arise. A single exception is provided for in the code, wherein it is ordered that “in cases of adultery, robbery, fraud, assaults, breach of laws concerning marriage, landed property or pecuniary contracts, or any other like offences committed by or against individuals in the military class--if any of the people are implicated or concerned, the military commanding officer and the civil magistrate shall have a concurrent jurisdiction.”[264]

~CHARACTER OF JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS.~

At the bottom of the judicial scale are the village elders. This incipient element of the democratic principle has also existed in India in much the same form; but while its power ended in the local eldership there, in China it is only the lowest step of the scale. The elders give character to the village, and are expected to manage its public affairs, settle disputes among its inhabitants, arrange matters with other villages, and answer to the magistrates on its behalf. The code provides that all persons having complaints and informations address themselves in the first instance to the lowest tribunal of justice in the district, from which the cognizance of the affair may be transferred to the superior tribunals. The statement of the case is made in writing, and the officer is required to act upon it immediately; if the parties are dissatisfied with the award, the judgment of the lower courts is carried up to the superior ones. No case can be carried directly to the Emperor; it must go through the Board of Punishments; old men and women, however, sometimes present petitions to him on his journeys, but such appeals seldom occur, owing to the difficulty of access. The captains in charge of the gates of Peking, in 1831, presented a memorial upon the subject, in which they attribute the number of appeals to the obstinacy of many persons in pressing their cases and the remissness of local officers, so that even women and girls of ten years of age take long journeys to Peking to state their cases. The memorialists recommend that an order be issued requiring the two high provincial officers to adjudicate all cases, either themselves or by a court of errors, and not send the complainants back to the district magistrates. These official porters must have been much troubled with young ladies coming to see his Majesty, or perhaps were advised to present such a paper to afford a text for the Emperor to preach from; to confer such power upon the governor and his associates would almost make them the irresponsible sovereigns of the provinces. Appeals frequently arise out of delay in obtaining justice, owing to the amount of business in the courts; for the calendar may be expected to increase when the magistrate leaves his post to curry favor with his superiors. The almost utter impossibility of learning the truth of the case brought before them, either from the principal parties or the witnesses, must be borne in mind when deciding upon the oppressive proceedings of the magistrates to elicit the truth. Mention is made of one officer promoted for deciding three hundred cases in a year; again of a district magistrate who tried upward of a thousand within the same period; while a third revised and decided more than six hundred in which the parties had appealed. What becomes of the appeals in such cases, or whose decision stands, does not appear; but if such proceedings are common, it accounts for the constant practice of sending appeals back to be revised, probably after a change in the incumbent.

Few or no civil cases are reported in the _Gazette_ as being carried up to higher courts, and probably only a small proportion of them are brought before the authorities, the rest being settled by reference. Appeals to court receive attention, and it may be inferred, too, that many of them are mentioned in the _Gazette_ in order that the carefulness of the supreme government in revising the unjust decrees against the people should be known through the country, and this additional check to malversation on the part of the lower courts be of some use. Many cases are reported of widows and daughters, sons and nephews, of murdered persons, to whom the revenge of kindred rightly belongs, appealing against the unjust decrees of the local magistrates, and then sent back to the place they came from; this, of course, was tantamount to a _nolle prosequi_. At other times the wicked judges have been degraded and banished. One case is reported of a man who found his way to the capital from Fuhkien to complain against the magistracy and police, who protected a clan by whom his only son had been shot, in consideration of a bribe of $2,000. His case could not be understood at Peking in consequence of his local pronunciation, which indicates that all cases are not reported in writing. One appeal is reported against the governor of a province for not carrying into execution the sentence of death passed on two convicted murderers; and another appellant requests that two persons, who were bribed to undergo the sentence of the law instead of the real murderers, might not be substituted--he, perhaps, fearing their subsequent vengeance.

~STYLE OF OFFICIAL ESTABLISHMENTS.~

All officers of government are supposed to be accessible at any time, and the door of justice to be open to all who claim a hearing; and in fact, courts are held at all hours of night and day, though the regular time is from sunrise to noonday. The style of address varies according to the rank; _tajin_, or magnate, for the highest, _ta laoyé_, or great Sir, and _laoyé_, Sir, for the lower grade, are the most common. A drum is said to be placed at the inferior tribunals, as well as before the Court of Representation in Peking, which the plaintiff strikes in order to make his presence known, though from the number of hangers-on about the doors of official residences, the necessity of employing this mode of attracting notice is rare. At the gate of the governor-general’s palace are placed six tablets, having appropriate inscriptions for those who have been wronged by wicked officers; for those who have suffered from thieves; for persons falsely accused; for those who have been swindled; for such as have been grieved by other parties; and lastly, for those who have secret information to impart. The people, however, are aware how useless it would be to inscribe their appeals upon these tablets; they write them out and carry them up to his excellency, or to the proper official--seldom forgetting the indispensable present.

Magistrates are not allowed to go abroad in ordinary dress and without their official retinue, which varies for the different grades of rank. The usual attendants of the district magistrates are lictors with whips and chains--significant of the punishments they inflict; they are preceded by two gong-bearers, who every few moments strike a certain number of raps to intimate their master’s rank, and by two avant-couriers, who howl out an order for all to make room for the great man. A servant bearing aloft a _lo_, or state umbrella (of which a drawing is given on the title-page), also goes before him, further to increase his display and indicate his rank.[265] A subaltern usually runs by the side of his sedan, and his secretary and messengers, seated in more ordinary chairs or following on foot, make up the cortége. The highest officers are carried by eight bearers, others by four, and the lowest by two. Lanterns are used at night and red tablets in the daytime, to indicate his rank. Officers of higher ranks are attended by a few soldiers in addition, and in the capital are required to have mounted attendants if they ride in carts; those who bear the sedan are usually in a uniform of their master’s devising. The parade and noise seen in the provinces are all hushed in Peking, where the presence of majesty subdues the glory of the officers which it has created. When in court the officer sits behind a desk upon which are placed writing materials; his secretaries, clerks, and interpreters being in waiting, and the lictors with their instruments of punishment and torture standing around. Persons who are brought before him kneel in front of the tribunal. His official seal, and cups containing tallies which are thrown down to indicate the number of blows to be given the culprits, stand upon the table, and behind his seat a _kí-lin_, or unicorn, is depicted on the wall. There are inscriptions hanging around the room, one of which exhorts him to be merciful. There is little pomp or show, either in the office or attendants, compared with our notions of what is usual in such matters among Asiatics. The former is a dirty, unswept, tawdry room, and the latter are beggarly and impertinent.

~MODE OF PROCEDURE IN LAW COURTS.~

No counsel is allowed to plead, but the written accusations, pleas, or statements required must be prepared by licensed notaries, who may also read them in court, and who, no doubt, take opportunity to explain circumstances in favor of their client. These notaries buy their situations, and repay themselves by a fee upon the documents; they are the only persons who are analogous to the lawyers in western countries, and most of them have the reputation of extorting largely for their services. Of course there is no such thing as a jury, or a chief justice stating the case to associate judges to learn their opinion; nor is anything like an oath required of the witnesses.

The presiding officer can call in others to assist him in the trial to any extent he pleases. In one Canton court circular it is stated that no less than sixteen officers assisted the governor-general and governor in the trial of one criminal. The report of the trial is as summary as the recital of the bench of judges is minute: “H. E. Gov. Tăng arrived to join the futai in examining a criminal; and at 8 A.M., under a salute of guns, the doors of the great hall of audience were thrown open, and their excellencies took their seats, supported by all the other functionaries assembled for the occasion. The police officers of the judge were then directed to bring forward the prisoner, Yeh A-shun, a native of Tsingyuen hien; he was forthwith brought in, tried, and led out. The futai then requested the imperial death-warrant, and sent a deputation of officers to conduct the criminal to the market-place and there decapitate him. Soon after the officers returned, restored the death-warrant to its place, and reported that they had executed the criminal.” The prisoner, or his friends for him, are allowed to appear in every step of the inquiry prior to laying the case before the Emperor, and punishment is threatened to all the magistrates through whose hands it passes if they neglect the appeal; but this extract shows the usage of the courts.

(His son praying to take his place.)]

The general policy of officers is to quash cases and repress appeals, and probably they do so to a great degree by bringing extorted confessions of the accused party and the witnesses in proof of the verdict. Governor Lí of Canton issued a prohibition in 1834 against the practice of old men and women presenting petitions--complaining of the nuisance of having his chair stopped in order that a petition might be forced into it, and threatening to seize and punish the presumptuous intruders if they persisted in this custom. He instructs the district magistrates to examine such persons, to ascertain who pushed them forward, and to punish the instigators, observing, “if the people are impressed with a due dread of punishment, they will return to respectful habits.” It seems to be the constant effort on the part of the officers to evade the importunities of the injured and shove by justice, and were it not owing to the perseverance of the people, a system of irremediable oppression would soon be induced. But the poor have little chance of being heard against the rich, and if they do appeal they are in most cases remanded to the second judgment of the very officer against whom they complain; and of course as this is equivalent to a refusal from the high grades to right them at all, commotions gradually grow out of it, which are managed according to the exigencies of the case by those who are likely to be involved in their responsibility. The want of an irresistible police to compel obedience has a restraining effect on the rulers, who know that Lynch law may perhaps be retaliated upon them if they exasperate the people too far. A prefect was killed in Chauchau fu some years ago for his cruelty, and the people excused their act by saying that it was done because the officer had failed to carry out the Emperor’s good rule, and they would not endure it longer. Amid such enormities it is no wonder if the peaceably disposed part of the community prefer to submit in silence to petty extortions and robberies, rather than risk the loss of all by unavailing complaints.

The code contains many sections regulating the proceedings of courts, and provides heavy punishments for such officers as are guilty of illegalities or cruelty in their decisions, but the recorded cases prove that most of these laws are dead letters. Section CCCCXVI. ordains that “after a prisoner has been tried and convicted of any offence punishable with temporary or perpetual banishment or death, he shall, in the last place, be brought before the magistrate, together with his nearest relations and family, and informed of the offence whereof he stands convicted, and of the sentence intended to be pronounced upon him in consequence; their acknowledgment of its justice or protest against its injustice, as the case may be, shall then be taken down in writing: and in every case of their refusing to admit the justice of the sentence, their protest shall be made the ground of another and more particular investigation.” All capital cases must be reviewed by the highest authorities at the metropolis and in the provinces, and a final report of the case and decision submitted to the Emperor’s notice. Section CCCCXV. requires that the law be quoted when deciding. The numerous wise and merciful provisions in the code for the due administration of justice only place the conduct of its authorized executives in a less excusable light, and prove how impossible it is to procure an equitable magistracy by mere legal requirements and penalties.

~MODES AND EXTENT OF TORTURING CULPRITS.~

The confusion of the civil and criminal laws in the code, and the union of both functions in the same person, together with the torture and imprisonment employed to elicit a confession, serve as an indication of the state of legislation and jurisprudence. The common sense of a truthful people would revolt against the infliction of torture to get out the true deposition of a witness, and their sense of honor would resist the disgraceful exposure of the cangue for not paying debts. As the want of truth among a people indicates a want of honor, the necessity of more stringent modes of procedure suggests the practice of torture; its application is allowed and restricted by several sections of the code, but in China, as elsewhere, it has always been abused. Torture is practised upon both criminals and witnesses, in court and in prison; and the universal dread among the people of coming before courts, and having anything to do with their magistrates, is owing in great measure to the illegal sufferings they too often must endure. It has also a powerful deterrent effect in preventing crime and disorder. Neither imprisonment nor torture are ranked among the five punishments, but they cause more deaths, probably, among arrested persons than all other means.

Among the modes of torture employed in court, and reported in the _Gazette_, are some revolting to humanity, but which of them are legal does not appear. The clauses under Section I. in the code describe the legal instruments of torture; they consist of three boards with proper grooves for compressing the ankles, and five round sticks for squeezing the fingers, to which may be added the bamboo; besides these no instruments of torture are legally allowed, though other ways of putting the question are so common as to give the impression that some of them at least are sanctioned. Pulling or twisting the ears with roughened fingers, and keeping them in a bent position while making the prisoner kneel on chains, or making him kneel for a long time, are among the illegal modes. Striking the lips with sticks until they are nearly jellied, putting the hands in stocks before or behind the back, wrapping the fingers in oiled cloth to burn them, suspending the body by the thumbs and fingers, tying the hands to a bar under the knees, so as to bend the body double, and chaining by the neck close to a stone, are resorted to when the prisoner is contumacious. One magistrate is accused of having fastened up two criminals to boards by nails driven through their palms; one of them tore his hands loose and was nailed up again, which caused his death; using beds of iron, boiling water, red hot spikes, and cutting the tendon Achilles are also charged against him, but the Emperor exonerated him on account of the atrocious character of the criminals. Compelling them to kneel upon pounded glass, sand, and salt mixed together, until the knees become excoriated, or simply kneeling upon chains is a lighter mode of the same infliction. Mr. Milne mentions seeing a wretch undergoing this torture, his hands tied behind his back to a stake held in its position by two policemen; if he swerved to relieve the agony of his position, a blow on his head compelled him to resume it. The agonies of the poor creature were evident from his quivering lips, his pallid and senseless countenance, and his tremulous voice imploring relief, which was refused with a cold, mocking command, “Suffer or confess.”[266]

Flogging is one of the five authorized punishments, but it is used more than any other means to elicit confession; the bamboo, rattan, cudgel, and whip are all employed. When death ensues the magistrate reports that the criminal died of sickness, or hushes it up by bribing his friends, few of whom are ever allowed access within the walls of the prison to see and comfort the sufferers. From the manner in which such a result is spoken of it may be inferred that immediate death does not often take place from torture. A magistrate in Sz’chuen being abused by a man in court, who also struck the attendants, ordered him to be put into a coffin which happened to be near, when suffocation ensued; he was in consequence dismissed the service, punished one hundred blows, and transported three years. One check on outrageous torture is the fear that the report of their cruelty will come to the ears of their superiors, who are usually ready to avail of any mal-administration to get an officer removed, in order to fill the post. In this case, as in other parts of Chinese government, the dread of one evil prevents the commission of another.

~THE FIVE LEGAL PUNISHMENTS.~

The five kinds of punishment mentioned in the code are from ten to fifty blows with the lesser bamboo, from fifty to one hundred with the greater, transportation, perpetual banishment, and death, each of them modified in various ways. The small bamboo weighs about two pounds, the larger two and two-thirds pounds. Public exposure in the _kia_, or cangue, is considered rather as a kind of censure or reprimand than a punishment, and carries no disgrace with it, nor comparatively much bodily suffering if the person be fed and screened from the sun. The frame weighs between twenty and thirty pounds, and is so made as to rest upon the shoulders without chafing the neck, but so broad as to prevent the person feeding himself. The name, residence, and offence of the delinquent are written upon it for the information of every passer-by, and a policeman is stationed over him to prevent escape. Branding is applied to deserters and banished persons. Imprisonment and fines are not regarded as legal punishments, but rather correctives; and flogging, as Le Comte says, “is never wanting, there being no condemnation in China without this previous disposition, so that it is unnecessary to mention it in their condemnation; this being always understood to be their first dish.” When a man is arrested he is effectually prevented from breaking loose by putting a chain around his neck and tying his hands.

Most punishments are redeemable by the payment of money if the criminal is under fifteen or over seventy years of age, and a table is given in the code for the guidance of the magistrate in such cases. An act of grace enables a criminal condemned even to capital punishment to redeem himself, if the offence be not one of wilful malignity; but better legislation would have shown the good effects of not making the punishments so severe. It is also ordered in Section XVIII., that “any offender under sentence of death for a crime not excluded from the contingent benefit of an act of grace, who shall have infirm parents or grandparents alive over seventy years of age, and no other male child over sixteen to support them, shall be recommended to the mercy of his Majesty; and if only condemned to banishment, shall receive one hundred blows and redeem himself by a fine.” Many atrocious laws may be forgiven for one such exhibition of regard for the care of decrepid parents. Few governments exhibit such opposing principles of actions as the Chinese: a strange blending of cruelty to prisoners with a maudlin consideration of their condition, and a constant effort to coax the people to obedience while exercising great severity upon individuals, are everywhere manifest. One who has lived in the country long, however, knows well that they are not to be held in check by rope-yarn laws or whimpering justices, and unless the rulers are a terror to evil-doers, the latter will soon get the upper hand. Dr. Field well considers this point in his interesting notes describing his visit to a _yamun_ at Canton.[267] The general prosperity of the Empire proves in some measure the equity of its administration.

~CORRECTION OF MINOR OFFENCES.~

Banishment and slavery are punishments for minor official delinquencies, and few officers who live long in the Emperor’s employ do not take an involuntary journey to Mongolia, Turkestan, or elsewhere, in the course of their lives. The fates and conduct of banished criminals are widely unlike; some doggedly serve out their time, others try to ingratiate themselves with their masters in order to alleviate or shorten the time of service, while hundreds contrive to escape and return to their homes, though this subjects them to increased punishment. Persons banished for treason are severely dealt with if they return without leave, and those convicted of crime in their place of banishment are increasingly punished; one man was sentenced to be outlawed for an offence at his place of banishment, but seeing that his aged mother had no other support than his labor, the Emperor ordered that a small sum should be paid for her living out of the public treasury. Whipping a man through the streets as a public example to others is frequently practised upon persons detected in robbery, assault, or some other minor offences. The man is manacled, and one policeman goes before him carrying a tablet, on which are written his name, crime, and punishment, accompanied by another holding a gong. In some cases little sticks bearing flags are thrust through his ears, and the lictor appointed to oversee the fulfilment of the sentence follows the executioner, who strikes the criminal with his whip or rattan as the rap on the gong denotes that the appointed number is not yet complete.

~MANNER OF PUBLIC EXECUTIONS.~

Decapitation and strangling are the legal modes of executing criminals, though Kí Kung having taken several incendiaries at Canton, in 1843, who were convicted of firing the city for purposes of plunder, starved them to death in the public squares of the city. The least disgraceful mode of execution is strangulation, which is performed by tying a man to a post and tightening the cord which goes round his neck by a winch; the infliction is very speedy, and apparently less painful than hanging. The least crime for which death is awarded appears to be a third and aggravated theft, and defacing the branding inflicted for former offences. Decollation is considered more disgraceful than strangling, owing to the dislike the Chinese have of dissevering the bodies which their parents gave them entire. There are two modes of decapitation, that of simple decollation being considered, again, as less disgraceful than being “cut into ten thousand pieces,” as the phrase _ling chih_ has been rendered. The military officer who superintends the execution is attended by a guard, to keep the populace from crowding upon the limits and prevent resistance on the part of the prisoners. The bodies are given up to the friends, except when the head is exposed as a warning in a cage where the crime was committed. If no one is present to claim the corpse it is buried in the public pit. The criminals are generally so far exhausted that they make no resistance, and submit to their fate without a groan--much more, without a dying speech to the spectators. In ordinary cases the executions are postponed until the autumnal assize, when the Emperor revises and confirms the sentences of the provincial governors; criminals guilty of extraordinary offences, as robbery attended with murder, arson, rape, breaking into fortifications, highway robbery, and piracy, may be immediately beheaded without reference to court, and as the expense of maintenance and want of prison room are both to be considered, it is the fact that criminals condemned for one or other of these crimes comprise the greater part of the unreferred executions in the provinces.

It is impossible to ascertain the number of persons executed in China, for the life of a condemned criminal is thought little of; in the court circular it is merely reported that “the execution of the criminals was completed,” without mentioning their crimes, residences, or names. At the autumnal revises at Peking the number sentenced is given in the _Gazette_; 935 were sentenced in 1817, of which 133 were from the province of Kwangtung; in 1826 there were 581; in 1828 the number was 789, and in the next year 579 names were marked off, none of whose crimes, it is inferrible, are included in the list of offences mentioned above. The condemnations are sent from the capital by express, and the executions take place immediately. Most of the persons condemned in a province are executed in its capital, and to hear of the death of a score or more of felons on a single day is no uncommon thing. The trials are more speedy than comports with our notions of justice, and the executions are performed in the most summary manner. It is reported on one occasion that the governor-general of Canton ascended his judgment-seat, examined three prisoners brought before him, and having found them guilty, condemned them, asked himself for the death-warrant (for he temporarily filled the office of governor), and, having received it, had the three men carried away in about two hours after they were first brought before him. A few days after he granted the warrant to execute a hundred bandits in prison. During the terrible rebellion in Kwangtung, in 1854-55, the prisoners taken by the Imperialists were usually transported to Canton for execution. In a space of fourteen months, up to January, 1856, about eighty-three thousand malefactors suffered death in that city alone, besides those who died in confinement; these men were arrested and delivered to execution by their countrymen, who had suffered untold miseries through their sedition and rapine.

When taken to execution the prisoners are clothed in clean clothes.[268] A military officer is present, and the criminals are brought on the ground in hod-like baskets hanging from a pole borne of two, or in cages, and are obliged to kneel toward the Emperor’s residence, or toward the death-warrant, which indicates his presence, as if thanking their sovereign for his care. The list is read aloud and compared with the tickets on the prisoners; as they kneel, a lictor seizes their pinioned hands and jerks them upward so that the head is pushed down horizontally, and a single down stroke with the heavy hanger severs it from the neck. In the slow and ignominious execution, or _ling chih_, the criminal is tied to a cross and hacked to pieces; the executioner is nevertheless often hired to give the coup-de-grace at the first blow. It is not uncommon for him to cut out the gall-bladder of notorious robbers and sell it, to be eaten as a specific for courage. There is an official executioner besides the real one, the latter being sometimes a criminal taken out of the prisons.

~ATROCIOUS MANAGEMENT OF PRISONS.~

Probably the number of persons who suffer by the sword of the executioner is not one-half of those who die from the effects of torture and privations in prisons. Not much is known of the internal arrangement of the _hells_, as prisons are called; they seem to be managed with a degree of kindness and attention to the comfort of the prisoners, so far as the intentions of government are concerned, but the cruelties of the turnkeys and older prisoners to exact money from the new comers are terrible. In Canton there are jails in the city under the control of four different officers, the largest covering about an acre, and capable of holding upward of five hundred prisoners. Since it is the practice of distant magistrates to send their worst prisoners up to the capital, these jails are not large enough, and jail distempers arise from over-crowding; two hundred deaths were reported in 1826 from this and other causes, and one hundred and seventeen cases in 1831. Private jails were hired to accommodate the number, and one governor reports having found twenty-two such places in Canton where every kind of cruelty was practised. The witnesses and accusers concerned in appellate causes had, he says, also been brought up to the city and imprisoned along with the guilty party, where they were kept months without any just reason. In one case, where a defendant and plaintiff were imprisoned together, the accuser fell upon the other and murdered him. Sometimes the officer is unable from press of business to attend to a case, and confines all the principals and witnesses concerned until he can examine them, but the government takes no means to provide for them during the interval, and many of the poorer ones die. No security or bail is obtainable on the word of a witness or his friends, so that if unable to fee the jailers he is in nearly as bad a case as the criminal. Extending bail to an accused criminal is nearly unknown, but female prisoners are put in charge of their husbands or parents, who are held responsible for their appearance. The constant succession of criminals in the provincial head prison renders the posts of jailers and turnkeys very lucrative. The letters of the Roman Catholic missionaries from China during the last century, found in the _Lettres Édifiantes_ and _Annales de la Foi_, contain many sad pictures of the miseries of prison life there.

The prisons are arranged somewhat on the plan of a large stable, having an open central court occupying nearly one-fourth of the area, and small cribs or stalls covered by a roof extending nearly around it, so contrived that each company of prisoners shall be separated from its neighbors on either side night and day, though more by night than by day. The prisoners cook for themselves in the court, and are secured by manacles and gyves, and a chain joining the hands to the neck; one hand is liberated in the daytime in order to allow them to take care of themselves. Heinous criminals are more heavily ironed, and those in the prisons attached to the judge’s office are worse treated than the others. Each criminal should receive a daily ration of two pounds of rice, and about two cents with which to buy fuel, but the jailer starves them on half this allowance if they are unable to fee him; clothing is also scantily provided, but those who have money can procure almost every convenience. Each crib full of criminals is under the control of a turnkey, who with a few old offenders spends much time torturing newly arrived persons to force money from them, by which many lose their lives, and all suffer far more in this manner than they do from the officers of government. Well may the people call their prisons hells, and say, when a man falls into the clutches of the jailers or police, “the flesh is under the cleaver.”

There are many processes for the recovery of debts and fulfilment of contracts, some legal and others customary, the latter depending upon many circumstances irrelevant to the merits of the case. The law allows that debtors be punished by bambooing according to the amount of the debt. A creditor often resorts to illegal means to recover his claim, which give rise to many excesses; sometimes he quarters himself upon the debtor’s family or premises, at others seizes him or some of his family and keeps them prisoners, and, in extreme cases, sells them. Unscrupulous debtors are equally skilful and violent in eluding, cheating, and resisting their incensed creditors, according as they have the power. They are liable, when three months have expired after the stipulated time of payment, to be bambooed, and their property attached. In most cases, however, disputes of this sort are settled without recourse to government, and if the debtor is really without property, he is not imprisoned till he can procure it. The effects of absconding debtors are seized and divided by those who can get them. Long experience, moreover, of each other’s characters has taught them, in contracting debts, to have some security at the outset, and therefore in settling up there is not so much loss as might be supposed considering the difficulty of collecting debts. Accusations for libel, slander, breach of marriage contract, and other civil or less criminal offences are not all brought before the authorities, but are settled by force or arbitration among the people themselves and their elders.

The nominal salaries of Chinese officers have already been stated (p. 294). It is a common opinion among the people that on an average they receive about ten times their salaries; in some cases they pay thirty, forty and more thousand dollars beforehand for the situation. One encouragement to the harassing vexations of the official secretaries and police is the dislike of the people to carry their cases before officers who they know are almost compelled to fleece and peel them; they think it cheaper and safer to bear a small exaction from an underling than run the risk of a greater from his master.

If the preventives against popular violence which the supreme government has placed around itself could be strengthened by an efficient military force, its power would be well secured indeed; but then, as in Russia, it would probably become, by degrees, an intolerable tyranny. The troops are, in fact, everywhere present, ostensibly to support the laws, protect the innocent, and punish the guilty; such of them as are employed by the authorities as guards and policemen are, on the whole, efficient and courteous, though miserably paid, while the regiments in garrison are contemptible to both friend and foe.

The efficacy of the system of checks upon the high courts and provincial officers is increased by their intrigues and conflicting ambition, and long experience has shown that the Emperor’s power has little to fear from proconsular rebellion. The inefficiency of the army is a serious evil to the people in one respect, for more power in that arm would repress banditti and pirates; while the sober part of the community would coöperate in a hearty effort to quell them. The greatest difficulty the Emperor finds in upholding his authority lies in the general want of integrity in the officers he employs; good laws may be made, but he has few upright agents to execute them. This has been abundantly manifested in the laws against opium and gambling; no one could be found to carry them into execution, though everybody assented to their propriety.

~LATENT INFLUENCE OF PUBLIC OPINION.~

The chief security on the side of the people against an unmitigated oppression such as now exists in Turkey, besides those already pointed out, lies as much as anywhere in their general intelligence of the true principles on which the government is founded and should be executed. With public opinion on its side the government is a strong one, but none is less able to execute its designs when it runs counter to that opinion, although those designs may be excellent and well intended. Elements of discord are found in the social system which would soon effect its ruin were they not counteracted by other influences, and the body politic goes on like a heavy, shackly, lumbering van, which every moment threatens a crashing, crumbling fall, yet goes on still tottering, owing to the original goodness of its construction. From the enormous population of this ancient van, it is evident that any attempt to remodel it must seriously affect one or the other of its parts, and that when once upset it may be impossible to reconstruct it in its original form. There is encouragement to hope that the general intelligence and shrewdness of the government and people of China, their language, institutions, industry, and love of peace, will all act as powerful conservative influences in working out the changes which cannot now be long delayed; and that she will maintain her unity and industry while going through a thorough reform of her political, social, and religious systems.

It is very difficult to convey to the reader a fair view of the administration of the laws in China. Notwithstanding the cruelty of officers to the criminals before them, they are not all to be considered as tyrants; because insurrections arise, attended with great loss of life, it must not be supposed that society is everywhere disorganized; the Chinese are so prone to falsify that it is difficult to ascertain the truth, yet it must not be inferred that every sentence is a lie; selfishness is a prime motive for their actions, yet charity, kindness, filial affection, and the unbought courtesies of life still exist among them. Although there is an appalling amount of evil and crime in every shape, it is mixed with some redeeming traits; and in China, as elsewhere, good and bad are intermingled. Some of the evils in the social system arise from the operation of the principles of mutual responsibility, while this very feature produces sundry good effects in restraining people who have no higher motive than the fear of injuring the innocent. We hear so much of the shocking cruelties of courts and prisons that the vast number of cases before the bench are all supposed to exhibit the same fatiguing reiteration of suffering, injustice, bribery, and cruelty. One must live in the country to see how the antagonistic principles found in Chinese society act and react upon each other, and are affected by the wicked passions of the heart. Officers and people are bad almost beyond belief to one conversant only with the courtesy, justice, purity, and sincerity of Christian governments and society; and yet we think they are not as bad as the old Greeks and Romans, and have no more injustice or torture in their courts, nor impurity or mendacity in their lives. As in our own land we are apt to forget that the recitals of crimes and outrages which the daily papers bring before our eyes furnish no index of the general condition of society, so in China, where that condition is immeasurably worse, we must be mindful that this is likewise true.

FOOTNOTES:

[240] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. VI., p. 48.

[241] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. IV., p. 59.

[242] _Embassy to China_, Vol. III., p. 26.

[243] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. III., p. 241.

[244] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. IV., pp. 61-66.

[245] Compare Dr. Bowring in _N. C. Br. R. A. Soc. Journal_, Part III., Art. VII. (Dec., 1852).

[246] _Chinese Repository_, passim. Oliphant, _Lord Elgin’s Mission to China and Japan_, Chap. XVII. Minister Reed, in _U. S. Dip. Correspondence_, 1857-58.

[247] The Chinese have a great affection for the place of their nativity, and consider a residence in any other province like being in a foreign settlement. They always wish to return thither in life, or have their remains carried and interred there after death.

[248] A district in the province of Kwangsí.

[249] Kiuh Kiang was an ancient minister of state during the Tang dynasty. His imperial master would not listen to his advice and he therefore retired. Rebellion and calamities arose. The Emperor thought of his faithful servant and sent for him; but he was already dead.

[250] Governor Loo.

[251] In permitting Chu to retire from public life.

[252] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. IV., p. 71.

[253] _Annales de la Foi_, No. 6, 1823, pp. 21-24.

[254] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. I., p. 236.

[255] _Easy Lessons in Chinese_, pp. 223-227. The effect of these instructions relating to grasshoppers does not appear to have equalled the zeal of the officers composing them; swarms of locusts, however, are in general neither numerous nor devastating in China.

[256] _A new History of China, containing a description of the most considerable particulars of that Empire, written by_ Gabriel Magaillans, _of the Society of Jesus, Missionary Apostolick. Done out of French._ London, 1688, p. 249.

[257] Compare the _Chinese Repository_, Vol. XVIII., p. 207.

[258] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. IV., p. 218.

[259] Compare Doolittle, _Social Life of the Chinese_, Vol. I., p. 330.

[260] Heeren, _Asiatic Nations_, Vol. II., p. 259. Raffles, _Java_, Vol. II. App. Biot, _L’Instruction publique_, pp. 59, 200.

[261] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. XI., p. 630.

[262] Compare Dr. Milne, in _Transactions R. A. S. of Gr. Brit. and Irel._, Vol. I., p. 240 (1825). _Journal of the R. A. S._, Vol. I., p. 93, and Vol. VI., p. 120. _Chinese Repository_, Vol. XVIII., pp. 280-295. A. Wylie, in the _Shanghai Almanac for 1854_. _Notes and Queries on C. and J._, Vol. III., p. 55. T. T. Meadows, _The Chinese and their Rebellions_, London, 1856. Gustave Schlegel, _Thian Ti Hwui, the Hung-League or Heaven-Earth-League. A Secret Society with the Chinese in China and India_, Batavia, 1866.

[263] _Missionary Chronicle_, Vol. XIV., p. 140. Smith’s _China_, p. 250.

[264] For cases of this sort in Cambodia, Rémusat makes mention of a variety of ordeals which curiously resemble those resorted to on the continent of Europe during the Middle Ages. _Nouveaux Mélanges_, Tome I., p. 126.

[265] Heeren informs us that a similar insignia was used in Persia in early days.

[266] W. C. Milne, _Life in China_, London, 1857, p. 99.

[267] Dr. H. M. Field, _From Egypt to Japan_, Chap. XXIV., passim. New York, 1877. _Chinese Repository_, Vol. IV., pp. 214, 260.

[268] Persons who commit suicide also dress themselves in their best, the common notion being that in the next world they will wear the same garments in which they died.