A HORRIBLE PUNISHMENT.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 48, 24 August 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

A HORRIBLE PUNISHMENT.

♦ Some Europeans are disposed to believe that the horrible judicial punishment of the ling-chih, the slow and shameful killing of a condemned person by catting pieces out of him until death comes, it now seldom inflicted in China. But it is still as much a legal punishment as ever, and high and advanced mandarins inflict it without scruple, even on those who are not responsible for their actions— persons afflicted with paroxysms of mania or permanent insanity. In the Shen Foa, the chief native newspaper of Shanghai, of a recent date, thero is a report of an exeoution by the ling-ohih process. The so-called criminal was a poor man of the Chang-show Hsien, living in Sooohow. Be had become mad, and in an access of mania had assaulted his father and killed him. He was brought before the magistrate, who heard the case and reported it to his offioial superiors. The Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor, and the Judge all assembled in oourt and 1 heard the 'case. The man waa sentenoed to die this terrible death ; the Imperial decree sanctioning the punishment was produced, and with

1 all the pomp and solemnity that could be given to the horrid deed, the i insane man was taken to the execui tion ground, was there out to pieces, i and his head was sent to his native village to be stuck on a pole in a public place. This savage procedure is related by the newspapers without a word of censure or disapprobation. The writer simply remarks that the lunatic's act must have been "settled before " — that is, it must have been the result of some affairs of a previous existence.