CHAPTER I SECTION I PREVENTION OF CRIME PRIVATE JUSTICE ETC. It is first necessary to deal with these two preliminary considerations. PREVENTION OF CRIME It is commented on in our law books that it is an honour, and almost a singular one, to our English laws, that they furnish a title of this sort that there is provision in them for obliging persons whom there is probable ground to suspect of future misbehaviour to stipulate with and to give full assurance to the public that such offence as is apprehended shall not happen. It will surprise European readers to learn that this honour is shared by the much despised Chinese. Indeed the practice is wider than with us, it being in the power of a magistrate, in any case where he is led to think it desirable, to make suspicious characters give security for their good behaviour, and to compel their relatives or neighbours to become responsible in seeing that they will carry out their undertaking. The document takes the form of a bond, somewhat answering to our recognizance. No specific sum of money is mentioned in the bond the punishment of fines, although it may be shown to exist, being looked on with disfavour but it is the duty of the bondsmen to watch the principal, and, if there be occasion, hand him over to the Court for safe keeping under penalty of being held parties to the offence committed by him and punished as accessories thereto. Nay, without a special bond, the wardsmen and tipaos are bound to give information, or, if need be, arrest and give over to the authorities all bad characters within their ward whom there is reason to suspect. The same responsibility attaches to parents and heads of families, with regard to those related to them, being within their influence. Foreigners judge of Chinese Law by the trading towns where they reside, and where a large floating population drawn from every quarter of the Empire makes the maintenance of order particularly difficult; and where, moreover, the power and influence of the mandarins is further crippled by constant foreign interference. Strange as it may seem, however, there is far greater security for life and property in the majority of Chinese towns and villages than in our metropolis. PRIVATE JUSTICE: PRIVATE ARRANGEMENT Private justice. A person may not take the law into his own hands, but the law will take into consideration the fact that the person had wrongs to avenge. To kill a thief, therefore, is merely considered as killing without warrant of the law, and although the penalty incurred is capital punishment, unless the circumstances are very aggravated, the sentence will not be carried out. Indeed, if a person kills another to avenge his father or grandfather, he will in the first instance only be sentenced to transportation. But the person who so kills must have failed to get justice at the hands of the law. If the slayer of such person's father or grandfather was justified in so slaying, and has paid the penalty by law imposed, the son must not kill the slayer ten years afterwards if he do so, the plea for commutation will not be admitted. As the Emperor Ch'ien Lung remarks "the "object of law is to avoid the necessity for private “vengeance, and, law once satisfied, it would never "do to allow the individual to take further action." In the case of Shên Wan-liang, the prisoner's father was killed while in the act of thieving, and the prisoner on reaching man's estate killed the slayer, although the latter had expiated the offence by serving his term of penal servitude. The plea for commutation was not admitted. Private arrangement. - An offence touching the public once committed, a private mutual arrangement of the involved parties to hush up or compound the same, in neglect of the Courts, is illegal, the person whose offence it was sought to compromise becoming liable to an aggravated penalty for the substantive offence, and the other party in general to a penalty |