CHINESE MURDER TRIAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2316, 16 August 1921, Page 4

CHINESE MURDER TRIAL.

METHODS ARE OF THE PAST.

BONE-BOILING POISON TEST.

How justice is administered in a Chinese criminal Court was illustrated in an interesting fashion at the trial of a locally celebrated murder case that was • held in March in Nantao, the native settlement which forms a large part of the city of Shanghai. For three'days preceding the trial curious thousands, hedged oft by stout bamboo rails, watched the progress of a post mortem at which East, and West clashed. The post mortem was performed by Chinese physicians, several trained in American and other Occidental schools, and others who had received their medical education in China. It was a case of suspected poisoning, and while the Western trained physicians insisted that the stomach and intestines with their contents should be sent, to a laboratory for analysis, the purely Chinese doctors clung to an ancient belief and declared that the question at issue cbuld be proved by boiling the bones of the deceased in a certain inannei. The Chinese doctors carried their poini. Chang Shen Sung, the accused, was arrested in the International Settlement. It was charged that thirteen months ago, at 'the little Chinese village of Pootuug, fourteen miles down the W hangpoo from Shanghai, he had poisoned his father, Chunk Ka-yung, a wealthy rice merchant. On application of the Chinese authorities of Nantao, the prisoner was turned over to the Chinese police, and a trial was held the next day.

COURT IN OPEN FIELD

The hearing took place in an open field, with the Court sitting beneath it mat shed, while close packed thousands, held back by soldiers and a stout bamboo stockade, looked on avidly through the hearing. In a prominent place in front of the Court a huge iron kettle simmered over an open lire, in which had been placed the bones of the alleged victim, as the Chinese doctors had ordered.

The hearing was lengthy, and the Court took no less than three recesses through the day. The procedure consisted almost wholly of questioning the accused and urging him to confess that he committed the. crime. * This questioning was done by the Court, police officials and two Chinese procurators in turn, and through the whole bombardment of interrogation the youth in manacles held firmly to a denial of his guilt. The Chinese doctors had declared that if the deceased had died from poisoning this would be made evident by the presence of discoloration* on the bones after the boiling process. Again and again Ibis was borne in upon thesprisonor, who was i old that if lie were guilty the bones when exposed would surely prove it. Itwvas when the Court sat for the fourth time that the lid was removed from the kettle and the grisly contents were placed on a long table. Numerous dark spots were seen on many of the bon* parts. One of the procurators, pointing to these marks, turned to the agitated prisoner.

“Did you poison your father ” lie thundered. The prisoner shrank back. ' “I did it, 1 poisoned him,” be confessed.