Chinese Punishments.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 12021, 21 March 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

Chinese Punishments.

Protests have frequently been madp apainst the punishments ir.flicted by the " Mixed Couits" in Chinese Treaty Ports but recent reports in the " Shanghai Merj cury " show that in Shanghai, at anyrate, ( these serai-foreign tribunals continue' their j barbarous methods. The "Mercury" sets j out the sentences inflicted on three d'av* j recently, ,vhen a British, an American and ji a (rerman assessor ivere successively in attendance. _ On the first day, ,vhen the Ame- | mm official yas on t]ie. Beuch., a man who

Md stolen a brass pipe, valued at 2d01., was sentenced to receive 200 blows with the bamboo; the theft of a coat, valued at 50 cents, was punished with 300 blows • for stealing bristles to the value of 62d01.'. 500 blows were inllicted > with one month's canguc; and two men, charged with being concerned in stealing a cheque on the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, received 500 blows each, with sis months' cangue in one case and throe month's in another. On the second day, the British assessor being on the Bench, sentences ranging from 100 to 500 blows were inflicted for offences Tarring from disturbance to attempted burglary, while the sum of greatest value mentioned as being stolen in the list of sixteen cases wrs 20dol. And on the third day sentences ranging between 200 and 400 blows were imposed for thefts which in no case exceeded 25d01., the lowest sentence of 200 blows being inflicted upon a woman for receiving stole:! goods. " No-. Ihing is said,"'remarks the Shanghai paper' m giving this list, " nbont the minor forms of physical punishment which the Chinese delight to inflict. The figures given all refer to strokes with the large bamboo, and we think that our readers will agree with us that the use of this dreadful instrument has now become excessive, and that the time has arrived when, for the sake of our reputation as a civilised community, the assessors ought tn intervene to limit the extent to which this form of punishment may be inflicted." So far as we know, the practice has never been defended, but, because it has always been the custom, the bamboo continues to be ordered.