HORRIBLE REVELATIONS OF CHINESE CUSTOMS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 630, 31 May 1870, Page 3

HORRIBLE REVELATIONS OF CHINESE CUSTOMS.

"*- A San Francisco correspondent gives tbe following sketch of a Chinese " hospital " : — Very few of the women brought here are wives, and they live, for the most part, in the most abject manner. When one of these poor unfortunates becomes weak and sick, and a Chinese physician pronounces her case hopeless, she is notified that she must die. She knows very well that protestations and prayers are unavailing, and submits without a murmur to her fate. Led by night to some miserable tenement that goes by the name of a "hospital " (how it gained such a name we do not know), she is forced within the door and made to lie down upon a shelf. A cup of water, another of boiled rice, and a little metal oil lamp are placed by her side. The assassins pass out of the death ceil, the heavy door is locked, and tbe miserable creature is left to die alone. What agonies the poor victims suffer in their lingering death no one knows. The smothered shrieks of despair, the dreadful moans with which weakened nature announces its sufferings, may be heard by those who live in that immediate vicinity, but they either pay no attention to them, or simply vent maledictions on the suffering cause of their annoyances. No one thinks bf interfering with the doomed one ; all know the laws, and none are brave enougb to interfere with the dreadful edict. After afew days the lamp burns out ; the light fails for lack of oil ; the rice cup and water cup are empty and dry, and the joss-sticks which were lighted when the woman was brought to the cell, are nothing but charred splinters of bamboo. Those who have immediate charge of the establishment know how long the oil should last, and when the limit is reached they return to the " hospital," unbar the door and enter, that they may remove the unhappy victim of such barbarous usage. Generally the woman is dead, either by starvation or her own hand ; but sometimes life is not extinct — the spark yet remains when the " doctors " enter— but this makes little difference with them. They come for the corpse, and they will not go away without it. If the victim be not already dead, the circumstance only delays the removal of the remains a few minutes. When they enter the woman is still alive, but they soon come forth bearing a body — only a body ; the heart has ceased to beat ; the breath comes and goes no more ; tbe soul has fled. How the deed is done— whether blood is drawn, the victim slaughtered or smothered— none save those in the secret know. The result is past dispute. A poor erring woman, helpless and unloved, is murdered, and this in the heart of a Christian and enlightened city. Such is a single chapter in the book of crimes of a cosmopolitan city. The truthfulness of the recital is vouched for by police officers, who aided the reporters in ferreting out the facts. '