A CHINESE HORROR

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8295, 25 September 1903, Page 4

A CHINESE HORROR

"Writing under date August 15, the London correspondent • of —e New Zealand ■Herald gives the following account of the execution of Sheii Chieh, the 'Chinese reformer, mentioned in our cables some months ago Information has arrived of an incident which curiously illustrates-Chinese manners and methods, and wliich from that- point of view is --stinctly interesting, *if somewhat grim. There is a Chinese party wen in China, to whom i.iie idea has occurred that the Chinese system of. government is not the. best of all possible systems, and tliat it iB capable of improvement. 1 need hardly say that this is heresy of the blackest hue, and if publicly proclaimed or even admitted, renders the holder liable to prompt suppression at the hands of the executioner. Yet these reformers are the stuff out of which the new and progressive Chinai might be moulded, if only they were allowed to work out their views. But this does not suit the amiable lady who rules the Empire—and its nominal Emperor, too' —with a rod of iron... Merely to hint at "reform" is the deadly sin—the seven dead-! ,ly sins rolled into one. A prominent member of the Reform party wa6 a young Chinaman named Shen Chien, an. eminent journalist. He has made himself rather prominent in his advocacy of changes, most of which seemed to British ideas as obviously desirable as to render their adoption almost a matter of course. '■No so thought the 'Empress. Shen Chien was .accused, arrested, arraigned, and convicted of sedition. In such a case sentence of death was a certainty,'and Shen Chien was duly sentenced to death by beheading as a, punishment for his temerity in daring to suggest that- any Chinese system could possibly need improvement. ..When the sentence was reported to the Empress for approval that gentle and amiable lady was highly indignant at such a sentence being passed for such an offence. Most of my New Zealand readers will no doubt sympathise with her. It would seem a shocking thing in New Zealand for a criticism of the Government methods to be punished with decapitation. And so it appeared to the Chinese Empress.- She soundly rated the officials who submitted the sentence" for her approval, and flatly fefiised to sign the warrant for decapitation. This will surprise many people who Would have imagined that such a sentence would have exactly suited the Empress' views. But it did not, and it was disallowed.

Don't let me lead you into any mistake, however. The reason why the (Empress disallowed the sentence of death by beheading was that it was so preposterously lenient for so grave a crime! So she promptly amended the sentence and doomed the hapless Shen Chien to a lingering death by torture, and in order to avoid any troublesome delays of worries by appeals or petitions she directed that the operations should be commenced forthwith, and ordered that Shen Chienj be flogged with bamboo canes until death resulted from the intense and protracted pain, which the executioners were expressly commanded to prolong as much as possible. It may perhaps be re membered as an historic parallel that pre cisely the same order as the latter was given by the English Queen Elizabeth in connection with the execution of Anthony Babington and hisi comrades by being disembowelled alive in (Lincoln's Inn Fields, with a hundred yards of the spot where I am now writing. And her order • was literally fulfilled !

So was the fiendish mandate of the Chinese Empress. The unfortunate Shen Chien was stripped and bound face downward and then was fiogged by relays of executioners until—as an eye-witness states—the whole of the flesh of his back and arms and thighs was first lacerated into strips and finally reduced to a bleeding pulp. It was at first alleged that the execution lasted two_ dreadful hours, at the expiration of which the victim succumbed. But- an American official in the diplomatic who investigated the affair, states authoritatively thai the torture lasted between three and four hours, and even then—such is the Chinese power of endurance —the wretched victim still lived and retained sensitiveness to the agony, so that the executioners, despairing of being {Ale to kill him by torture, and moved by his prayers that they would put him out of his misery, surreptitiously ended his sufferings by strangling him with a cord. It is said tliat the prisoner managed to smuggle from his person a farewell mes sage in llie form of a poem ui praise of reform, in which he exhorted his colleagues to continue the work. In i.ue official report of the execution it was stated that the prisoner had been beheaded, and the supporters of the Empress have adopted ar. apologetic tones, asserting that the severity of the beating administered to the Shen Chien was exaggerated, and that he was strangled before he had suffered much. All are forced to admit, however, that the Empress ordered Shen Chien to be beaten to death because she considered beheading too mild a form of punishment. When poor Shen Chien's fate became known six scholars who submitted essays containing suggestions for tne reform of the Government at the recent examinations for official appointments, and who had been denounced by the censors, fled at once from Peking, it is supposed to Japan, fearing to undergo a similar experience if they remained to face a trial. This is scarcely surprising. And now the Chinese 'Government has addressed a note directly to the foreign Ministers, requesting the extradition' of the prisoners in the Supao newspaper case,_ thus reinforcing the demands for their surrender already addressed by the Chinese officials at Shanghai to the Consuls in that town. The note states that the prisoners are wanted for "execution." There is no mention o-f a trial, and it is inferred that the authori-* ties propose to dispense wicu the formality. All the newspapers in the treaty ports exhort the Ministers to refuse ui? demand of the Chinese 'Government, and (Mr Balfour's declaration in the House of Commons that the prisoners will not be surrendered has been received with cordial satisfaction, for it- is absolutely certain that such surrender would mean toe abandonment of the victims to hideous torture, terminated only fry too tardy death.