TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 155, 26 July 1909, Page 4

TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE

HOW "JUSTICE" IS DISPENSED IN

CHINA.

Hongkong, June 10. During the early part of last year a Chinaman from Oisborne, New Zealand, who had been seized by Cantonese bandits and held for ransom, was released. A somewhat similar story now comes | from Bangkok", the victim being Mali Mee .Soon, a wealthy banker, who, in November last, went to visit his wife and three children in his native village near Canton. He reached his home safely, and had enfoyeu about a month's rest there, when one day a military company of sixty men, with two officers, came to his house, and, charging him with being a rebel, arrested him. He was bound with a chain round his neck, and his hands fastened ■behind, and made to walk for a day to a railway station, where, he was entrained and brought to Taychoo, the big town i f the district. There he was brought before a Court and charged with -being a rebel. He denied the charge, but his denial ami explanations were not accepted, and he was detained in prison. There were several prisons in this town, and Mali Mee Soon was sent to one v.here sixty other prisoners were confined. After three or four days he was trken before the Court again And asked to admit he was a rebel. He refused, and was then put in a cangue, the Chinese equivalent for the stocks, and kept there an hour. Again he was pressed to admit ibeing a rebel, but refused. He was next ordered to be Hogged. He got fifty strokes with a rod, and was brought before the Court once again. Still refusing to answer as tho Court desired, he got Hogged fifty strokes at a time till he got two hundred and had become unconscious. The Hoggings lasted over an hour and a-lialf. Unconscious and 'bleeding he was carried on a board to the prison, -where he j lay for eight days unable to move. After the lapse of eight days attempts were made to take his handprints as a token ot bis admission of guilt, but this he prevented. E O ,. thi ri he was ordered to be again flogged, but seeing his flesh was too mw for further flogging he was put in the cangue instead. He was altogether undergoing this torture for about sixty-eight days, during which he was taken before the Court seven times.

Tim lust tini!' lie was taken b-fore the Court, he was informed a telegram had been received from JMiiirkok signed bv several hundred people there, who vouched iiir him. . [|,. was given to understand Unit tile ollicials were satisfied he was a rich man from Bangkok, and tile proof was, of course, a cash payment. He made no complaint to the Chinese authorities; that would only involve explaining and demonstrating to many more that he was a "rich man from Bangkok," and the redress he was likely to obtain \va 6 not likely to be worth what it might cost to get it.