I Was Standing So Close To Them That The Dress Of
One Touched My Feet.
I could hear their breathing, which had been heavy
at first, become a series of gasps, and cool as
The afternoon was, the
sweat of pain fell from their brows upon the dusty floor, and they were
so emaciated that, even through their clothing, I could see the
outlines of their bones. There were no counsel, and no witnesses, and
the judge asked but one question as he beat his foot impatiently on the
floor, "Are you guilty?" They were accused of an aggravated robbery,
and were told to confess, but they said that only two of them were
guilty. They were then sent back to the tender mercies of the
opium-smoking jailer, probably to come back again and again to undergo
the severer forms of torture, till no more money can be squeezed out of
their friends, when they will probably be beheaded, death being the
legal penalty for robbery with aggravations.
There is no regular legal process, no jury, no one admitted to plead
for the accused, and owing to the way in which accusations are made and
the intimate association of trial with bribery, it is as certain that
many innocent persons suffer as it is that many guilty escape. From
such a system one is compelled to fall back upon the righteousness of
the Judge of all the earth; and as I stood in that hideous
judgment-hall beside the tortured wretches, I could not shut out of my
heart a trembling hope that for these and the legion of these, a
worthier than an earthly intercessor pleads before a mightier than an
earthly judge.
It is not clear whether torture is actually recognized by Chinese law,
but it is practised in almost every known form by all Chinese
magistrates, possibly as the most expeditious mode of legal procedure
which is known. It is also undoubtedly the most potent agent in
securing bribes. The legal instruments of summary punishment which
hang on the wall of the Naam-Hoi judgment-hall consist of three boards
with proper grooves for squeezing the fingers, and the bastinado, which
is inflicted with bamboos of different weights. The illegal modes of
"putting the question," i.e., of extorting a confession of guilt, as
commonly practised are, prolonged kneeling on coarse sand, with the
brow within an inch of the ground; twisting the ears with "roughened
fingers," and keeping them twisted while the prisoner kneels on chains;
beating the lips to a jelly with a thick stick, the result of which was
to be seen in several cases in the prison; suspending the body by the
thumbs; tying the hands to a bar under the knees, so as to bend the
body double during many hours; the thumb-screw; dislocating the arm or
shoulder; kneeling upon pounded glass, salt and sand mixed together,
till the knees are excoriated, and several others, the product of
fiendish ingenuity.
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