On account of the scarcity of foreign population, the Hongkong jury
consists of seven and the Shanghai jury of five. There is constant
argument between the Chinese press and the English press of the treaty
ports in China on the subject of “mixed” courts in which foreigners
sit. China is writing a reformed code in which Wu Ting Fang had a hand,
and in which the new minister, Wong Chun Hui, is interested, and is
pressing forward to the day when at least she will try all Chinese,
including those who have injured foreigners in settlements. The
newspaper argument will do good instead of harm. In 1899 Japan ceased
to allow her citizens to be tried under foreign law, and even began
to try foreigners under Japanese law. On the subject of trusts and
directorial responsibility, I have seen in the Tientsin _Ching Wei Pao_
a plea that employés be not fined and imprisoned for corporate faults,
but that those who make the money (directors and shareholders) bear the
responsibility. China is, and has always been, a frank sociological
thinker.
A police system on the French gendarmerie plan has been put in vogue at
Peking, and photographs are being generally used for identification.
The Chinese have been very averse to photographs. The custom was
broken down by Hongkong insisting for twenty years that emigrants
should be photographed in duplicate so that their certificates might
be identified. This gradually got the Chinese used to the custom, the
returned emigrants spreading word that there was no ill-luck in the
operation. The old-fashioned policeman who went his rounds beating a
gong is becoming obsolete, and the new policeman, like our own, is
supposed to bait himself with silence and skill, so as to be sugar
in leading the burglar to the trap. Not long ago, however, I heard
the old-fashioned Chinese Lukong beating his wooden drum as he went
his rounds in the Portuguese colony of Macao, China. When the police
recover lost goods, half only is returned to the owner, and half often
goes to public charity which is organized in a guild. This is an old
regulation in many parts of China. One of their wits said that the
difference between a lower and a higher court is that one has the first
and the other has the last “guess” at a case! The Chinese point out
the delays in the execution of murderers as a most serious defect in
justice, and the sentimentalism expressed by part of our press and
pulpit as a most serious defect in our mentality. They show headings
in our newspapers reading as follows: “Ministers Strive with Murderer
Blank”; “Four Pastors Prepare Murderer Blank for Death,” etc. The
laconic Chinese ask: “How long a time did the murderer give his victim
to prepare for death.” The Chinese say that our levity in this terrific
matter has run the average of murders in America up to the highest
point in any nation, and that their average, with England’s, is the
lowest because of swift and sure justice in those two countries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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