CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN CHINA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 738, 9 June 1876, Page 3

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN CHINA.

There are three grades of capital punishment -Ist, strangulation; 2nd. decapitation, which is much feared, from the idea that a person goes into the next world in the same state in which he left this one ■ and 3d, for heinous crimes, such as treason’ parricide, sacrilege, &c, the punishment which the Europeans somewhat incorrectly style cutting into ten thousand pieces. This consists in the prisoner having his face and other parts of his body so slashed before the final blow is struck, that he enters Hades not headles, but with his skeleton partially divested of flesh. Crucifixion and sawing asunder are two of the other horrible modes by which criminals are executed, and, strange to say, the former means, with all its long, lingering torture, is often preferred to decapitation, simply because the crucified man saves his head, in which he is anxious to show with his ancestors in the next world ! In all these punishments a rich man can usually obtain a substitute ; the great difficulty being not in bribing a man to take the real criminal’s place, but simply to bribe all the officials whose business it is to 'see the sentence carried into execution ; or indeed, primarily, the one who has to pronounce it. Chinese prisons are terribly severe in their discipline, so that to avoid these Tyo-yo, or hells, as they are properly called, for long terms, death is frequently preferred. Races of Mankind.

_ Spicer says a fireplace always reminds him of Shakespeare, because it is a grate barred.

A subscriber to a Southwestern newspaper died recently, leaving four years’ subscription unpaid. The editor appeared at the grave and deposited in the coffiu a palm leaf fan, a linen coat, and a thermometer. Moral—well, that’s obvious. A New York paper states that a laborer in anice-houso down East was killed by a large lump of ice falling on his head. Verdict of the jury, “ Died from hard drink.”

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