A CHINESE HOSPITAL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 127, 14 July 1870, Page 7

A CHINESE HOSPITAL.

A San Francisco correspondent gives t':c following sicetci of a Chinese hospital : — " Vury fe»v of the women IWight here are wives, and they live iW 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 protestation and prayers are unavailing and submits without a murmur to her fate. Led by night to some miserable tenement that goes by the name of an "hospital" (how it gained such a significant antithetical name we do not know), she ia 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 is locked, and the miserable creature is left to die alone. What agonies the poor victim suffers in the lingering death no one knows. The smothered shrieks of despair, the dreadful moans with which wakened nature announces its sufferings, may be heard by those who live in that immediate vicinity, but- they either pay no attention to them, or simply vent maledictions on the suffering cause of theii? annoyance, No one thinks of interfering with the doomed one ; all know the lawa; and none are brave enough to interfere with the dreadful edict. After a few days the lamp burns out; the light fail* 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 lasi", 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 no#extinct — the spark yet remains when the ■' doctors " enter — but lihis makes little difference with thorn. They come for the corpse, and they will not go away without it. If the victim be nofealready dead, the circumstance only delays the removal of the remains a few minutes. When they enter the jwoman 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. How the deed is done — whether blood is drawn, the victim slaughtered or smothered — none but those in the secrert know. The result is past dispute. A poor erring woman,helpless and unloved, is murdered, and this in the heart of a Christian and enlightened city. Such is a single chapter in the book of crimes of a cosmopolitan city. The truthfulness of the recital is vouched for by police officers, who aided the reporters in ferreting out the facts,"