A CHINESE HOSPITAL.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 695, 2 July 1870, Page 1 (Supplement)

A CHINESE HOSPITAL.

A San Francisco correspondent gives the 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 tcnament that goes by thename of an " hospital " (how it gained such a significant antithetical 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 cell, the heavy door ia locked, and the miserable creature is left to die alone. What agonies the poor victim suffers in the lingering death no one knows. 1 The smothered shrieks of despair, the dreadful moans with which wakened nature announces its sufferings, may Ife heard by those who live in that immediate vicinity, but they either pay no attention to them, or simply vent maledictions on the suffer-, ing cause of their annoyance. No one thinks of interfering with the doomed one ; all know the laws, and none are brave enough to interfere with the dreadful edict. After a few days the lama burns out ; the lamp 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 to then. They come for the corpse, and they will not go away without it. If the victim is not already dead, the circnmstance 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 ; the soul : has fled. Ho w the deed is gone — whether blood, is drawn, the victim slaughtered — ; none save those in the secret know. The • result is past dispute. A poor crying ■ woman, helpless" and unloved, is murf dered, and this in the heart of a Christian > and enlightened city. Suchisasinglechapl ter in the book of crimes of a cosmopolitan. L city. The truthfulness of the recital is E vouched for by police officers, who aided ' the reporters in ferreting out the facts."