THE DEATH PENALTY IN CHINA.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 88, 11 September 1874, Page 3

THE DEATH PENALTY IN CHINA.

Death in China is awarded as the punishment fur the most trivial offences, and frequently for none at all, except being in somebody’s way. A story was told to me as a fact that during the visit of one of our royal princes a theft was committed of a chain or watch belonging to the royal guest. The unfortunate attendant was caught with the property upon him, and, without farther ceremony, his head was chopped off. The mandarin in attendauce immediately announced the tidings to the prince as a little delicate attention, showing how devoted he was in his service. To his astonishment the prince expressed his great regret that the man’s head had been taken off. ‘ Your Highness,’ cried the obsequious mandarin, bowing to the ground, l it shall immediately be put ou again!’ so little did he understand that the regret was for the life taken and not the severed head. lu times of insurrection or famine the mowing down of human life is like cornstalks at harvest, time appaling to European ideas. I must conf< ss to a nervous shuddering when I stood upon the execution ground at Canton —a narrow lane or potter’s field—where so many hundreds had been buried per diem during weeks together, the executioner requiring the aid of two smiths to sharpen his swords, for many of the wretched victims were not allowed to be destroyed at one fell swoop, but sentenced to be ■ hacked to pieces’ by twenty to fifty blows, I was informed by a European who had travelled much and seen most of the frightful side of life, that witnessing Chinese executions was more than his iron nerves could stand ; and in some of the details which he was narrating I was obliged to beg him to desist. And yet he said there was nothing solemn about it, and the spectators looked on amused. It was the horrible aud the grotesque combined. —Temple Bar,