It is probable that not for some years will the punishments of
flogging, neck cangue and stocks be removed from the revised Chinese
code. These punishments, involving public “loss of face,” are abhorred
by the Chinese, and while they are somewhat barbaric, they are
effective deterrents of crime in China. They were both revived by the
British government of Hongkong in dealing with native offenders during
the turbulent times of the 1911–12 revolution, when it was found that
hard labor, jail sentences and fines were laughed at by the immense
Chinese population of the island colony. Greece, as long ago as 330
B. C., had borrowed the cangue from China, and Demosthenes, in the
_Oration On the Crown_, can think of no way so effective to damage his
accuser, Aeschines, than to mention that the latter’s father had to
wear a zulon (cangue) as a punishment for thievery. Chien Shao Cheng,
of the Justice Department, Peking, has visited American prisons and
studied foreign penal methods.
An “Investigating and Arresting Department” is the name by which one
of the Manchu courts at Canton went. It employed detectives, and the
taotai (mayor) did not disguise the fact that the court resorted to
“third degree” tortures. This was one of the many things which made
followers for the reformers. Banishment cases are constantly coming
up. The prisoner who will not or can not depart to another country or
province is put in the stocks for four hours a day for a year, and the
remainder of the day he spends at hard labor. Strangling in cages was
in vogue at Canton in the last days of the Manchu reign, orders having
come from Peking in September, 1911, that the coolie who attempted to
assassinate Admiral Li should be suspended by the neck in a bottomless
cage. In the yamen at Chingtu City stands a stone tablet bearing the
word Sha (kill), erected by the Shansi marauder, Chang Hien Chung, who
massacred the Szechuenese, who supported the native Ming emperors. The
stone remained as a threat to be used by the Manchu mandarins on behalf
of the Ta Ching dynasty. The Ministry of Justice under the Manchu
régime ordered the viceroys and governors to prohibit foreigners from
unnecessarily being present in court.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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