EASTERN INQUISITIONS.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 41, 4 September 1900, Page 4

EASTERN INQUISITIONS.

The exquisite torturse that were devised by the Inquisition three or four hundred years ago seem to be rivalled by those that are practised by John Chinaman to-day. The man of the pig-tail and almond eyes has an especial taste for torturing his fellow beings. Where human life is as cheap as that of beasts, mere death is too commonplace. [Everybody dies, but is not everybody that is helped into the next world wjfeh punishment and torture. The Chinese have brought torture to a fine art. Thanks to missionary efforts in the more or less settled districts, much of the ancient barbarity has been abandoned in favour of a more humano system of pimisbment on those who have transgressed the law ; but in the out-of-the-way district?, which have as yet not known the civilising influence of the white man, the same 1 tortures and barbaric cruellies arc. piactised to-day as were ia vogue before the dawn of the Christian era. Wrong- doers in China are always subjected lo pnni&hment of a physical character. Imprisonment is almost unknown, and hard labour as a punishment ia looktd upon as foolish. There are innumerable methods of torture, but that alloted to those who are adjudged guilty of treason is a very fair sample of the rest. The unfortuuate wretch who has to undergo this barbarity is first of all seciuely fastened to a stool. A long coil of hose is then wound around his limbs and body. One end of the hose has a head like that of a serpent, and into the mouth scalding water is poured. The first lot of water is allowed to cool, and is then let out of the tail of the serpent and the hose refilled with more boiling water. This process is repeated until the miserable criminal, in frightful agony, expires. A Chinaman convicted of a particularly heinous offence is generally sertenced to blindness. In the eastern provinces this is usually effected by burying the man up to his neck in the grouud and then plucking out his eyes. In the western provinces a much more barbarous , rocess is repeated uu'il che miserable criminal is laid on his back and firmly secured. A man then comes forward, carrying in his hands two small bags of quicklime. With these he beats at I the eyes of the victim. The tears enforced by the beating action fire the quicklime, and the eyes are soon burned away. But there is no need to enlarge upon, these horrors. The examples we have given aro sufficient to show that the Chinese are still centuries behind the first dawn of Chinese civilisation. Lyttelton Times.