Lynch Law in China.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 100, 2 May 1885, Page 5

Lynch Law in China.

Even in China lynch law is resorted to. Just outside the west gate of Shanghai is a small hut where an old man and his eon lived up to November 13th of last year. The son made it a practice of calling upon his father for cash whenever he was in want of it, until the thing got rather monotonous for the father, who remonstrated with hi 3 son, and being saucily replied to, the father attempted to apply "paternal correction" on the son ; the son, in rage, then caught hold of the door-bar and brought it down with such force upon the father's skull that he ciacked it and killed the old man. The neighbours, hearing the row, assembled at the door of the house where the murder was committed, and captured the son as he was endeavouring to escape. The members of the father's clan were then called together, and at a solemn conclave it was decided to administer on the spot the law set aside for parricides, instead of appealing to the magistrate, which invariably causes much delay, and perhaps the murderer might effect his escape in the meantime. So the parricide was bound hand and foot, and just without the hamlet a hole was dug and the wretched murderer consigned to its depths. Th«i mud was thrown into the hole and the members of the clan stamped by turns on the grave until it was level with the ground, and so without leaving a mound or any mark to point out the parricide's grave the assem bled crowd dispersed silently to their daily vocations.