SIR HENRY LOCH IN THE PEKIN PRISON.

Otago Witness, Issue 2105, 28 June 1894, Page 51

SIR HENRY LOCH IN THE PEKIN PRISON.

A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE. The report that Sir H. Loch was retiring from the Governorship of Cape Colony is stated to be premature. He has been granted six months' leave of absence The report, however, is not to be regretted, since it has given occasion for the publication by the Pall Mall Gazette of a fuller account (compiled from his own notes) than had ever previously appeared of Sir Henry's experu in Pekin. As the " Life of Sir Harry Parkes'' has just reminded us, it was the fate of Messrs Parkes and Loch to fall into the cruel bands of the Chinese in the course of Lord Elgin's embassy campaign (in which the French were our allies) in North China in the year 1860. It was after the capture of Penang and the Taku forts that the two young men, together with The Times correspondent, Mr Bowlby (who was murdered), were treacherously arrested under a flag of truce. The most refined torture whilst imprisoned was that of being repeatedly told to prepare for the axe, and as often respited. But beyond this suspense they suffered very real tortures in the Pekin gaol. IN IHE "BOARD OJ) 1 PUNISHMENT 3 " PRISON. The prison in which they were first confined after arrival in Pekin was one which enjoys evil notoriety as that of the " Board of Punishments" — that prison in fact where the worst tortures are inflicted. They were driven thither, helplessly bound, in a cart without spring?, jolted unmercifully o'er the great paviDg etones of the Chinese roads. After being kicked and cuffed and subjected to various o'her indignities before the mandarins, they were separated, heavily ironed, and removed to dark cells at a distance from each other. Young Mr Loch was put in a long dark gaol full, as be described it " of as savage a lot of half-naked demons as I had ever beheld," about 50 in all, 18 or 20 in chains, and nearly all criminals of the lowest class, imprisoned for murder and similarly serious crimes. The chains put upon him were a torture in themselves. First of all a heavy iron collar was rivetted round his neck. From obis depended a heavy iron chain reaching to the feet. His wrists were then handcuffed, and a small chain connecting them was passed through a link in the chain from neck to feet, his ankles were next gyved, and the fetters were connected by another small chain also attached to the long one. Finally his elbows were pinioned, and the neck collar was attached to a chain hutjg down from a beam over a sloping bench — a chain just long enough to permit of his lying on the bench for sleep. The head gaoler at his own sweet will Bometimes shortened this beam chain so that the victim could not lie down even on his bed of plank I ONE Off THE HORRORS OF A CHINESE GAOL.

In narrating his life in prison Sir Henry Loch said — " There is a small maggot which appears to infest all Chinese prisons ; the earth at the depth of a few inches swarms with them ; they are the scourge most dreaded by every poor prisoner. Few enter a Chinese gaol who have not on their bodies or limbs some wounds, either inflicted by blows to which they have been subjected, or caused by the manner in which they have been bound. The instinct of the insects to wbicb I allude appears to lead them direct to these wonnds. Bound and helpless the poor wretch cannot save himselE from their approach, although he knows full well that i£ they once succeed in reaching his lacerated skin there is the certainty of a fearful, lingering, and agonisiDg death before him. My right hand neighbour on the bench where we all slept at night was djiog from the inroads of these Insects ; bis suffering was great-, and the relief his fellow-prisoners could afford was of no avail. The crowded state of the gaol brought me in such close contact at night with this poor fellow that our beads rested on the same block of wood not a foot apart. The thought as I lay pinioned and ironed, unable to move during the long dark nights, that his fate might at any moment be my own was at times difficult to bear with calmness, and with that outward appearance of indifference which it was necessary I should maintain." To guard against this horrible pest Mr Loch's neck and wrists were every morning carefully washed with a small rag by a couple of prisoner attendants. THE LAST STAGE. Mr Loch'a imprisonment began on September 19, 1860, and he remained in this atrocious durance under the Board of Punishments until the 29th. On that day he and Parkes were taken to another prison, where their circumstances would have been far happier but for the terrible suspense in which they were kept as to whether they were to be beheaded or released. One moment they were assured of the one, the next told they were to prepare for the other. They were confined in a kind of temple under a picked Tartar guard, apparently as much with the object of preventing the people lynching them as of keeping them in custody. While thus confined they were made to write — or rather Parkea was — a letter dictated by the Chinese, advising Lord Elgin to consent to a conference to settle terms, and to refrain from bringing his army nearer Pekin. Parkes wrote in Chinese, as directed, but prevailed on the mandarin to allow Loch to add a word, and Loch, declaring his ignorance of Chinese, was allowed to write this in Hindostanee. He wrote : •' This letter is written by order of the Chinese Government. — H. B. Loch." Apparently (the Hindostanee was in English characters) the Chinese interpreter failed to

understand this message, for the letter reached Lord Elgin. After receiving it Lord Elgin told the Chinese Government point blank that he held them responsible for the lives of the two Englishmen, whom he mentioned by name. The upshot — to cut short a story of which much more that is interesting and exciting, too, might easily be told — was that Messrs Parkes and Loch were released; Lord Elgin, by hia sudden advance and capture of the Emperor's Summer Palace, having at last convinced the Chinese authorities that he was really in earnest, and that their fancied superiority to the world in general might be a little less assured than was good for their precious skins. It is stated, however, that within but a quarter of an hour of the two captives pasßJDg through the gates of Pekin the mandarins who had charge of them received the Emperor's order for their immediate execution.