DESCRIPTIVE LETTERS FROM AN EXILE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7247, 1 October 1910, Page 6

DESCRIPTIVE LETTERS FROM AN EXILE

GLIMPSES Of CHINA ' PRISONERS AND FICTION i CCy RANDOLPH BEDFORD.) All Rights Reserved. No. VIII. i A man looks at the great wall of ■ China, and says, "This was built 1)V . giants." And lie is wrong—it was built • by ants, by human equivalents of those termites which build the lofty, meri--1 dionnl ant hills of North Australia—2o feet high and more, and every grain of ' it has passed through a termite's body. The week of the eoial insect is another parallel, but the termite illustration may stand. 1 Prom this drunken growth of popula- ' tion comes a contempt for the indivi- [ dual, a slavish fidelity to formula, and a careless contempt for human life. It is supposed to be a democracy, with the Emperor as a theoretical servant of the people, and two Councils as intermediaries, and it is hard to say who, from ' the Emperor downward, is not oppressed by iron conventions in one way or ' anotiher. 'The "Peking Gazette," the . oldest newspaper in the world, writes • eti-ery day ithid faults an|d errors of every important office-bearer, from Hie Emperor to the police. In theory the people are the. Empire, and the Em- ■ peror is least; but like Confucianism with the Chinese, and in a lesser degree of Christianity with us, it remains a theory unacted noon. The Empeorr is ' the sole landlord. "Tnere is only one sun in tho sky, and ono Emperor over i the earth."

After that begins the- reality. An Emperor is generally a debauchee, who dies early (or, I be;; pardon, "ascends on a dragon to be a guest on high.") Corrupt mandarins and all ghastly and unconscious hypocrites. The Emperor is Viec-Regent of Heaven, and acknowledged co-ordinate of Heaven and Earth. Ho confers titles on God, on the Queen of Heaven, on the gods of the yea and the wind, and one the mere little provincial god of Shangahai. Inis idea of making God a fort of justice of the peace, of electing Him to a (suburban .council, is all the more humorous read with Hie cs.se of an Emperorso criminal that his successor ordered that his soul should not be allowed to transmigrate. And there the pool', soul still i=—condemned to live in Peking. The Emperor *s apparently elected because he is the maddest man in_tt>e Empire. His favourite li«»r for n. thecal -performance i« oisht "doA." 1 *! morniii". As soon ns lie dies his beir I must as prescribed bv law lonr nr* hair and his clothes to pieces and wail ami stamp for three years to show.his grief, but Iw action peculiarly Chinese Wis is reduced to 37 months. . An Emperor who had a sen born to him during the time of mourning was thereby proved to have broken the law against consoling himself. Being an Emperor be was sacred but the Council and the Censors solemnly banished his portrait and it was carried far over the Mongolian desert, and there- abandoned. . A provincial Governor administers .as he pleases so Ion? as he send the Ivmpcror's share of the taxes to PoUm. A Viceroy's salary is JE6OOO a year, but this is all scent in clerks ajid secretaries and hangers-on. and he has to squeeze the people for himself. The mandarins irulo by rljrht of education—in theory—for often the mandarin and his clerk will ran a dead heat in the i race of illiteracy. " SQUEEZE." The Governor of a has often a big string of hereditary nobles to support, and the people have to be squeezed for the-:o; the mandarin, in addition to' his legal salary, receives 30 times as "inch as an "anti-extortion allowance. Yet even the humour of.it doe-s not pre-' vent him from eating the people in addition. Most appointments are for three vears onlv. and the order of the day is "Scineeze!" So thev squcezo from the highest to the lowest, down to the unlianpv wretch who being acquitted cannot leave his prison because he cannot bribe the gaoler to let him go. In this universal dishonesty of mind there is only respect for the past and for the dra'd—thev b°ad smurcdevs of slit, but object to railways which would disturb the dead, and to telephone wires which would cast their sh-jflows on a tomb. Any man may innocently become . a scaoegoat and suffer therefor; if a girl declines to complete a marriage contract the law takes the matchmaker and gives him 50 blows of the bamboo, and forces the jrirl to . the bouse of the grcom's parohts. The misconduct of a subordinate us taken to prove that the suT-erior was unworthy of bis position, and the. superior is punished as well as the malefactor. The Chinese merchantand banker is well spoken of for honesty: yet all Government is corrupt; the greed of mandarins, the shocking vanity of the literati —all r.s conceited as minor poets—the vicioTisness of the priesthood—all mere waves of the great sea of bribery and spoilation which submerges the Chinese character. And the lowest, and meanest of them can pretend a tremendous dignity and virtue. Barbers, who wore until' quite recently of the pariah class, an 3 could not compete in tho literary examinations, will not in eiany towns be sh.ampooe.rs too. because the dignity of

the razor is thereby injured. It is all dignity and corruption.. Roads and rivers and canals and gradually going out of commission; on the Mongolian frontiers eonio officials, I 'am told, get £i a year and gnaw the people to the Done. The idle classes are 'Called literate; jnst as the old Venetians called a light Woman "a courteous person." arid an assassin a "brave fellow." or. as the American newspapers of to-day call an adulteress an "affinity"; the air is filled with high-sounding phrases of much morality, and many pratings of virtue and in "constant act axe horrible crimes and tortures and cowardice. Kidnapping slaves is common—though, torture and death are the punishments—a.nd girl babies are thrown out to die. You may Iray a pretty ™irl for from £3 to £5, according to the market supply and demand. Imnerial edicts full of lofty sentiment —noble- deeds done with the mouth —and lAng Chi the deaths of the thousand cuts. The human body is indraoenit. aind must not be seen, and our sculpture galleries would fill the Chinese with shame. Yet he tears the poor flesh to pTeces and apparently his real respect is rot for the body Trot for the clothes that cover it. Tlie common form of transport for freight and passage is, in tlie interior, a wheelbarrow, with a Rail when a fair wind blows; yet at devising tortures he is the cleverest brainjOf all the races. PENALTIES AND CRIME. It is all hypocrisy and etiquette. . The Board of Rites examines and arranges '-v<j five kinds of ritual—the number of blows and acts of courtesy various grades imnst pay to superiors, equals and inferiors. If plague or locusts, or droughts come a censor arises and attributes the trouble to some unknown and iravirtuous .doings of the Emperor, and exhorts him (o a better life; if a courtier breaks the etiquette of the long mourning up rises

some unspecified and -unnecessary person nurl savs "Thou art the man." It is only when censorc begin to eat. oeo-or that, the poor general public finds peace. True to' (he -"eneral scheme of inversion n soldier in war time is sent to sea. and admirals arc given the command of armies. Here then, in China, were the land admiral and the wheelbarrow sailor and tlie horse marine invented. In the last six days of the year', when all male treads must bo shaved, a. barber who should forget the law'and clean the customer's ears, is beaten and his tools and furniture thrown out into the streets. A strike is always fixed up by the employer giving in. A Mandarin cannot ilog a whole trade and the workman having nothing to lose rather likes the going to court, which the employer avoids as he would the. plague, for the Mandarin would certainly squeeze him. Here, as everywhere else in th-c world, labour, in the last resort, is the stronger, because canital is timid, having much to lose. "The Prefect of Loochow pi a tax on silk looms; tho weavers refused to throw a shuttle until tho tax was repealed, and repealed it was. A scare or more of years ago a hundred workmen or more objected to ' som« industrial regulations. They called in a body on the magistrate," who had mn.de the regulation, and in order that all should be equally culpable, took turns in biting off the magistrate's cars. Somo years later at Loochow a manufacturer asked a magistrate for leave to engago extra apprentices. Relying on the precedent judgment. "Biting is not a capital offence," the workmen seized the manufacturer and literally bit' him to death. To read the regulations of the Board of Punishments is to read a code breathing the spirit of legalitv and mercv, and the administration of it is full of terrible injustice and frightful orueltv. Bribes accepted for the conviction of the innocent to screen the guilty; charges invented for spite and paid with tortures; prisoners left untried for 20 years in horrible dungeons. A man complained that his daughter hatl been abducted; next day his dead Body was found; the author of the two crimes was known; yet by bribery an ittquoit was avoided, and the relative who had pointed out tlie murderer was tortured until ho falsified his original statement. Poor men in prison long awaiting trial, and selling their wives and children to get tlie money for the necessary bribe, and some waiting 20 yea re. Once in a lit of virtue, a magistrate was flogged to death for extortion, but this was only to seem to appear to save tho country's face. At Nanking a man was murdered; two man were executed for it, and for some mad unreason, the witness against them had his car cut off. Later the real niuderers were found, the magistrate had suborned the witness and tortured the innocent men until they confessed to the other men's crimes. MOKE ABOUT PUNISHMENTS. Men, for spite, have been- Known to suicide on another man's doorstep, so as to charge him. with murder; the relatives of a wounded man generally desire his death so that they may b'lackinail his slayer; and a man who tries to save another who 7s in danger is considered to be directly responsible for his death. The traitor is sliced to death, and all his male relatives are beheaded, and if he can't be found guilty, torture will make him prove himself so. A man and a woman charged with working inagic at Soochow confessed under torture that they made men out of paper, and tho shocked governor said that death alone could not expatiate such a crime. They died in torture mdoscribab'e. Tho law. prescribes the size of instruments for .crushing ankles, for finger squeezing; tho size of chain on whicli a man shall kneel, while other men stand on his calves; the size of cords to suspend tho prisoner by the thumbs or the big toes; the sort of knife, to be used for hamstringing; and gives 'directions for tho blinding of men with lime, and deafening them by piercing the .eardrums. "Whoever shall murder and divide tlie liml>s of deceased for purposes of magic shall suffer death by a slow and painful process, and he shall bo beheaded if be secretly purposes it." There is no way to find out his secret rmrposes but torture; and the poor tongue will say anything to save the agonised body for a moment. For parricide a slicing to death; for striking a parent, or for a wife to strike her husband, beheading; tearing out an inch of hair 100 blows of the- bamboo; for breaking a tooth, a toe or. a finger, 100 blows. The son who accuses either parent of a crime, even if the accusation be true, suffers 100 blows and three years', imprisonment, and if the parents plead guilty they are pardoned. The bamooo must be straight, sft. sin. long, 2in. wide, and weighing 2ilbs., and must be held by the thinner end. The cangue must be square, ana weigh 2.51 b. Women niny wear the upper garments while being hogged, but'aduitresses are flogged naked. For passing through the gate ojf th'o Forbidden City, 10D blows; if founu near an Emperor's apartments, strangulation; and 100 blows for. passing the gate,of the palace with the secret thought of going m, even if he does not enter. Strangulation for shooting arrows or bullets or throwing stones in the direction of the palace; remaining erect when, the Emperor is Eassing, 100 blows. Everything earns 100 lows except bigamy, and the penalty for bigamy is fixed at 50. As I always iiko to go in for half-price, I have decided that, if I must fall foul of the law of China, bigamy shall bo my. offence. At Canton, in the Street of Benevolence and Love, which bisects the old city from the East to tho West Gate, is the Pwan Yu Prison. It is faced by the Temple of Horrors and by a Protestant Church. Next it is a Confucian temple, and behind it a Buddhist nunnery. This is not accidental; in the moat miserable quarters of tho new city you find .the Gate of Peace, the Tranquil River Gate (the Tranquil River being, a particularly robust sewer, too thick to move)"; the Gate of Poverty and the Gate of Eternal Joy. These names mean nothing. Between Purity and Eternal Joy is the execution ground; the -Potter's Field, near the river, but hidden from it. and cheek by jowl with a Protestant church and many temples.

From the Street of Benevolence aiid Love you enter this place of pain and fear. Bo of good heart if, you have money, for money will enable you to escape. capital punishment, unless it be for treason. There are criminals here—bad criminals—a brigand and his gang have recently killed 20 people outside Canton, and the secret society of murderers —the Kuni Cliai Wiu—is ever busy. Disappearances are frequent. The drunken white man taking a sampan to row to his ship shall not reach that ship if ho have money; the Australian—JTEvoy or il'llwraith —who was last seen on the Wing Lok wharf aTTIong Kong embarking for Canton, is but one~o'f many. PRISON HORRORS. Yet the.ro must be in this many innocent men—men like that for whom the new Taotai of Police of the other day punished a policeman for "squeezing"— the runners holding the prisoner for a bribe after he had 1 been acquitted. Through the judgment halls, and past the stores, and to the prisons of men trial. The untried prisoner is almost as badly treated as the convicted. There are cages for transport of prisoners Cangues or the torture of the neck and hands by crank, instruments of torture; pincers and finger squeezers and ankle crushers, chains, little wooden wedges to be driven under the finger and toe nails. Prisoners—"haggard, halfstarved men. who look not hke the dying, but like men who have died and been dug up again. Heavy drags iron collars, men beaten, men eaten by vennin. A'small maggot is in the earth below most prisons; almost every prisoner lias one or many wounds from chains, bamboo istrokes, or torture. If the worms enter the wounds, in all that callous neglect there it remains, a slow and agonising death. Here is where the slight offenders are forgotten, and the poor prisoner may starve and then there is the little iron door in the rear of

tho prison far the tortured body to go out to corruption. The unspeakable horror of the prison on the west side of the entrance for the worst criminals; s-here torture comes every day. And here, if a visitor were to show pity and give money to give ease to one man. for a day, the other agonising wolves might tear him to pieces only with the hope of a cent or two each." A room for prisoners wearing the wooden collar and last the better prison for prisoners who can afford to nay. And if these have any comfort what are the horrors enacted in the other places of this evil, miasmatic windless grave, where men are buried while they are yet alive? Tortures for the prisoner and for the free man. fourpence a day. and the building of the pagodas with blood and money to bring luck! Poor old human nature stinging itself like a fire-beleagured scorpion, hitting out at Fate, blindly .and in darkness. The pagoda of Honour was built with the spoil of piracies as a thanks offering to the gods; the Brigands' Temple of Kinshan is used for worship by robbers, who come to ask « blessing before starting out to rob art! murder. But archbishops all the world over bless the armies aiid pray for the success of their arms. Meanwhile all that rotting life in the granite silence—the just and the unjust —the guilty and the unfortunate beaten bv the same hands. "Oh, God, let the pitiful sighing- of the prisoners come before thee! According to the plentitude of Thy mercy hol]i Thou those who are now appointed to die." There is no. mercy here; prayers but reverberate; pity is dried up. South, down thronged streets to between tho Temple of Buddha, with a Protestant church next the Temple of the God of War. through the central gate to the gate of Eternal Purity,__to the Potters' Field, where 300 robbers "and salt smugglers and other criminals are beheaded every year. (Last January a soldier stole something from a shop, and in the riot that followed SCO were killed and 100 of the rioters were boheaded.) It is a little patch of ground, with half a dozen Buddhist temples and Christian churches near by. Tho men you will see dving by slow strangulation —hanging by' the neck in tall wooden hutches shaped like tree-guards. Some die elsewhere. This is__the place for suffering' by the sword, bucing to death is not a very frequent occurrence; not so common as the death of the Forty Knives. A knife is labelled for cacTl member of tho body, and every feature —arm, leg. breast, nose, right eye, left ej'e, -lips, right ear, left ear—and taken by chance which decided the mutilation. Happy prisoner for whom luck (or a fee to the executioner) selects the knife labelled "heart" at the first try. Not so common this punishment, again, as beheading, and for more "cumsbaw" this death may be made to seem merciful by contrast. The execution ground is an irregiilarsided patch of ground 75ft. long by 25rt. wide. Potters* shops surround it; a great joyous tree grows over the tiled roofs; the place is used for sundrying pots and flat clay dishes; even on execution days tflc' fiat dishes dry there on shelves along the wall. Against the walls lean tho crosses on which females and the worst criminals) are slowly strangled or cut to pieces; the idlers are there, stolid and incurious—three men die to-day. They have been cheered by a last meal of pork and samsul. all the last wants are satisfied as wo satisfy the white condemned. The poor human takes Leave of his beloved appetite with that last appeal to _ taste. How decorous all the executions I have seen before. The white convict, strapped and capped, led to the scaffold tearless, because all tears have been wept long before—the dapper sheriff, the pale clergyman, the respectable, grocer-look-ing executioner, with his long, grey false bijard; the touch of the lever and death swift and seemly. Here_!_ The condemned walked in, their arms ixriind behind them at the wrists. They knelt; tho executioner lifted his long and shining sword with its curious halt, measured the stroke, smote, and a head fell off. Then to the next, and the third man looked curiously at the dead man. and at the one about to dio, and then braced himself stolid and unfaltering for tho third stroke. So China was three men the jioorer—three heads with wide-open an' Blind eyes and colour fading slowly from the lips, and tho three headless bodies, their bound hands giving thorn a horrible suggestion of trussed fowls, of carcases ready for the spit. Blood in tho sunlight and the gatheriiiK of ities and the crowd of motionless witnesses, gazing without thought of emotion. To all the smells of this great manuro neap comes the warm smell of blood. Cruelty, is native to them; life so evil that death has no terror. I seo again the hellion with tho crumpled feet beating tho child with tho billea. Oh! master executioner., thou art tho best man in China; strop thy razor well and kill them all.