Tortures for the Chinese.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 160, 10 July 1886, Page 7

Tortures for the Chinese.

A correspondent sends ua the following,. It purports to-be a translation of a Chines© , document picked up last year at Healtheriee. It "is dated from King-Sing-Tong in November, 1884, signed by a certain Ly-Ah, and would appear to be part* »of an official report addressed to the Board of Punishments, Pekin : —After six moons" sojourn in this abode of moistened gloom, I am piepared to offer some suggestions for improving our Celestial punishments. Those which we now use, and which are shown in pictures at the exhibition of Mdine. Tog-So, require a good deal of apparatus, and can trom their destructive tendency be inflicted only once upon the the eamo criminal. The tout tires in vogue, here are, perhaps, the only points wheie these barbarians have improved on our civilisation. Thoy are self-inflicted ; they may bo repeated many times; and they are always conducted with that rigid etiquette which id distinctive of a superior people. Ftom patriotic motives I have even undergone many of these punishments* myself, and I have arranged with some barbarian experts who will accompany me home and introduce their art into our peerlous country, bhould the brother of the Sun and Moon be pleaeed so to ordain. The name common to these inflictions is Pah-Ti, and it is customary to refer to them, as plea&ant. The executioner at whose dwelling they occur writes to ask the victims tor the pleasure of their company ;~ and thoy reply that they are happy to accept the kind invitation. The Pah-Tis are of various kinds One form now almost* obsolete is called the Tee- Pah-Ti. It is usually applied to middle-aged ladies. They have to assemble and each swallow a portion of meat followed by tea cake, muffin, or hot toasfc soaked in fat made irom the milk of cow. Each then drinks large draughts of cecoction from those twice-boiled leeves which we disdainfully; export to barbarians as tea. The tannin in. it changes the meat into leather, and its, fluid bulk the tea cake or other spongy substance expand. Thus present discomfort and future indigestion are endured, mean*. while the victims are compelled by etiquette lo converse with assumed merriment, regaidless of the increasing agony they are enduiing. The greater eliminate are made to sit during this operation with their backs to the fire ; and in very heinous cases the door or window is sufficientlyo pened to/ allow a draught free play over their faces. This adds toothache or neuralgia to their, other inconvenience. These Tee Pah-Tis, however, are falling into disuse. For they usually occused in the; afternoon, whereby these who took part im them were prevented from earning incometax for the (State. Nowadays most punishments take place in the evening. They are known a3 evening Pah-Tis or Swah-Raya* The simplest of these is like our admonition, by baking. Into a room containing air for 100 persons, 400 persons are made to enter. Gas and candles are lighted ; the doors and wiudows are hermetically sealed ; and the prisoners are introduced one to another. Politeness compels them to converse. This* from drought and sympathy, they find most difficult, and each is a souice of sorrow tQ, himself and to all his neighbours. A way of varying this torture is to lower the temperature by means of draughts to apoint at whisht conveisation becomeo just possible. AH the most talkative people are then mutually iv« traduced, and as soon as they evince a wish, to speak they are ordered to be silent. Then executioners, with instruments or with, their natural voices, produce such bangs^ screeches, and cries as strike terror into the) boldest hearts, and make all presen. tremble: to think what may be coming next. Afteu these performances, those who have tailed tot escape from the neighbourhood of the: executioners are obliged to smile and thank them. For more robust criminals there is $ severer punishment, known as Dban-Tsing. It is more fatiguing than the treadmill, and its recipients are less comfortatyy attiredThose who assist in it are called Shap p' Rooms and Pah T'ners. The Pah T'nera have to clutch one another in uncomforto able po&itions, and gyrate violently toi the sound of instruments. The p* Rooms are placed bolt upright in cold, awkwaid places. They may not move, bufr they act like the cushions of a billiard table r and have the Pah T'ners continually bump*, ing against them, and stamping on their; toes. Meanwhile, the Pah T'ners are very unhappy. For care is taken to couple the^ tall with the short, the slight -with thqt stout, and the light with the unwieldy. fcjo> the short get jerked and bumped, the> tall are cramped with stooping. The slights cannot get a proper hold of the stout, andl the stont feel hot and contemptuous towards the slight. The feather "weights revolves helplessly around the unwieldy, revolve like;; the earth upon their axes, and can-* noned against and hustled till they are> black and blue. Then they all have to say how much they all enjojed themselves; they catch cold on the road home,* ancl awake very sad indeed the next morning.