11.] AN HONEST MANDARIN. 45 come back to us?" At many points the crowd was so great as to interrupt the line of march, and the state chair was frequently in danger of being upset. It was evident that the mottoes which were inscribed on the banners hung out on the route of this virtuous servant of the state, faithfully interpreted the public feeling. CHAPTER III. PRISONS AND PUNISHMENTS. IN this chapter I propose to give a description of Chinese prisons, respecting the cruelties practised in which so much was said and written in the early part of 1858-the year in which Canton was assaulted and captured by the allied armies of Great Britain and France. When I have described these "habitations of cruelty," I shall proceed to give an account of the various degrees of punishment which are meted out to those who have been convicted of breaking the laws of their country. Many of these punishments are barbarous and cruel in the extreme. For example, in the gaol of the city of Chin-kiang I saw a poor wretch who for three days and three nights had not been allowed to sit down. His wrists were bound together by a long chain, the end of which was made fast to one of the rafters of the roof of his cell. In some instances prisoners are tied up by ropes which are made fast under their arms, their feet not being allowed to touch the ground. Some of the modes of capital punishment in China may justly be described as examples of abominable and revolting cruelty. I need not, however, anticipate details which it will be my unpleasant duty to narrate in the course of this chapter; and the facts which I have to bring before the reader will speak for themselves. The prisons of China consist, according to their class, of a certain number of wards each. Thus, for example, the prisons of the respective counties of Namhoi and Pun-yu, in the province of Kwang-tung, which are first-class county prisons, CHAP. III.] COUNTY PRISONS. 47 consist, besides cells in which prisoners on remand are confined, of six large wards, in each of which are four large cells, making in all twenty-four cells. The same arrangements may be said to prevail in all county prisons. The walls of the various wards abut one upon another, and form a parallelogram. Round the outer wall of this parallelogram a paved pathway runs, upon which the gates of the various wards open. This pathway is flanked by a large outer wall, which constitutes the boundary wall of the prison. The cells are of considerable dimensions. In each ward the four cells are arranged two on a side, so as to form the two sides of a square, and resemble cattle-sheds, the front of each being inclosed by a strong palisading of wood, which extends from the ground to the roof. They are paved with granite, and each is furnished with a raised wooden dais, on which the prisoners sit by day and sleep by night. They are polluted with vermin and filth of almost every kind, and the prisoners seldom or never have an opportunity afforded them of washing their bodies, or even of dressing their hair, water in Chinese prisons being a scarce commodity, and hair-combs articles almost unknown. In each cell are placed large tubs for the use of the prisoners; and it is difficult to conceive how human beings can breathe the stench-for the air seems nothing else-which arises from these tubs, more particularly during the hot season. In the centre of each ward is a small shrine in which stands an idol of a deity called Hong-koong-chu-shou. This god, who receives the homage of the prisoners, is supposed to possess the power of melting into tenderness and contrition the hard and stubborn hearts of the wayward and wicked. The natal anniversary of this most suggestive and melancholy mockery of deity is celebrated by the prisoners with an attempt at feasting. The expense of the repast which is provided on such occasions is defrayed by the governor of the gaol. This Cerberus, however, takes very good care to repay himself by appropriating, at intervals, portions of the small sums of money doled out daily for the maintenance of his unwilling guests. The approach to the prison is by a narrow passage, at the entrance of which there is an ordinary sized door. Above this entrance door is painted a tiger's head with large staring eyes and widely-extended jaws. Upon entering, the visitor finds au altar on which stands the figure of a tiger hewn in granite. This image is regarded as the tutelary deity of the prison gates. The turnkeys, with the view of propitiating it, and securing its watchfulness, worship it morning and evening, gaolers in China being held responsible for the safe custody of the miserable beings who are intrusted to their care. On a visit which I paid to the prison of the Namhoi magistrate at Canton, I saw one of the turnkeys presenting offerings of fat pork to this stone tiger, before which he was also burning incense and making genuflexions. At the base of the large wall which I have described as forming the prison boundary, there are several hovels-for by no other name can they be designated-in some of which all the female felons are lodged, and in others whole families, who have been seized and detained as hostages by the mandarins. There is a law which admits of the seizure and detention as hostages of families, members of which, having broken the laws of the empire, have fled from justice. Such hostages are not liberated until the offending relatives have been secured, and consequently they are not unfrequently imprisoned during a period of five, ten, or twenty years. Indeed, many of them pass the period of their natural lives in captivity. Thus the mother, or aunt, of Hung Sow-tsuen, the leader of the Taiping rebellion, died, after an imprisonment of several years, in the prison of the Namhoi magistrate at Canton. During her captivity I frequently visited the unoffending old woman, and grievously indeed did she feel her imprisonment for no crime or offence of her own. Should the crime of the fugitive be a very aggravated and heinous one, such, for example, as an attempt upon the life of the sovereign of the empire, it is not unusual to put the immediate, although perfectly innocent, relations of the offender to death, whilst those who are not so nearly related to him are sent into exile. In 1803 an attempt was made to assassinate the emperor Ka-hing. The assassin was no sooner apprehended than he was sentenced to be put to death by torture; and his sons, who were in the happy days of childhood, were put to death by strangling. The mortality in Chinese prisons is so great that a dead |