No. 178.
Mr. Hay to
Mr. Angell.
Department
of State,
Washington, August 16,
1880.
No. 26.]
Sir: I transmit herewith a copy of an unaddressed
circular, dated at London, July, 1880, issued by Mr. Francis Parry, in which
attention is called to the alleged practice of the mixed courts in
permitting the employment of more or less inhumane modes of extracting
evidence from criminals or witnesses who may be unwilling to confess or
testify. It would appear from Mr. Parry’s statement that these practices are
sanctioned by the foreign assessors who unite with the native magistrates to
form the mixed courts. The publication of the communication thus made by Mr.
Parry is understood to have occasioned considerable and not very favorable
comment in the English press.
The instances cited by Mr. Parry purport to cover many cases of apparent
punishment for crime. It is, of course, necessary to separate them from
those of practical torture for the extraction of testimony or confession.
The former may, unhappily, form part of the regular administration of
justice in punishment of crime according to the Chinese laws, and while
extreme severity of punishment should be discountenanced in the common
interest of humanity, it is not at present deemed expedient to give you any
precise instructions on this point until the working of the new and improved
methods of judicial administration, as reformed under the control and with
the co-operation and sanction of the foreign powers, shall be apparent. That
a code framed with the assistance of the enlightened body which represents
foreign interests in China should fail to safeguard the common interests of
humanity is hardly conceivable, especially with the knowledge possessed of
the earnest efforts made for the amelioration of the prisons and prison
discipline of China and the doing away with the barbarous modes of
confinement which made the simple fact of detention often a worse torture
than corporal punishment. You will, however, give this branch of the
question your attention, and should abuses appear to have been retained, you
will report the views of yourself and your colleagues thereon.
With respect to the infliction of pain as a means of judicial inquiry, the
case is vastly different. Such methods should not be recognized or
sanctioned by any civilized power; and, if they are practiced, no proper
means should be spared to check the abuse, through the influence of the
foreign assessors, who cannot be expected to lend themselves knowingly to
the procedure described.
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It is desired that you should investigate the matter, and if the report be
ascertained to be well founded, and the character of the personal suffering
inflicted should appear unwarrantable, you will use your exertions, through
the assessors on the part of the United States and through your colleagues,
to bring about a state of things less open to adverse criticism from the
point of view of humanity.
I am, &c.,
JOHN HAY,
Acting
Secretary.
[Inclosure with No.
26.—Extract.]
The judicial torture of China.
The want of an abridged record of the proceedings of the “mixed court” of
the foreign settlement of Shanghai, as reported in the Supreme Court and
Consular Gazette, leaves something to be done in the collation and
publication of some cases which, during the year 1879, have been
adjudicated upon in a manner assimilating to the Chinese so closely as
to create the apprehension that the foreign consuls yield to a
pernicious influence. This memorandum has, therefore, been prepared and
is circulated for general information.
As to the sentences of the court. Those in excess of one hundred blows
are, according to the Chinese code, illegal; the punishment of the
cangue, or huge wooden collar, is a torture; beating on the face is a
mutilation; the most severe is the remission of persons convicted of
capital and heinous crimes to be judged, tortured during examination,
and imprisoned by the higher court of the district magistrate in the
native city. This remission is not the ordinary “extradition” provided
for in the treaty of Tientsin, Article XXI; the criminal is not demanded
by the city authorities; the rendition is a matter of convenience.
These matters demand rectification. The association of the foreign consul
with the Chinese mandarin is a point of contact capable of being made
the inlet for that regard for humanity common to civilization—the base
of all the humanities.
Japan has abolished judicial torture. Turkey no longer legalizes the
mutilation of offenders. China has yet to gain a good name by repressing
the cruelty which is the marked characteristic of her judicial
system.
FRANCIS PARRY.
2, Stanhope Gardens, S.
W., July,
1880.
[Extracts from the “North China Herald and
Supreme Court and Consular Gazette.” Vol. xxii.]
- Case 1, March;
20.—“Yesterday morning Shun Che-sze was taken before Chen and Br.
Macgowan, the U. S. assessor, at the mixed court, when he admitted
having arranged the abduction and paid his confederates $100. He
stoutly refused to divulge their names, boldly telling the
magistrate that he had paid them for what they had done, and
therefore they should not be punished. The magistrate ordered him to
receive fifty blows on the face for his contumacy, which were
accordingly inflicted, but he still refused to divulge their names,
and another fifty blows were administered, but only with the same
result. Ultimately the examination was postponed.”—Fo. 280.
- Case 2, March
25.—“Three hundred blows were inflicted on the culprits, who groaned
a good deal during the infliction. As there were several travelers
present, Dr. Macgowan explained that after mouth-slapping, which the
abductor had suffered for contempt of court, the punishment first
inflicted was of the mildest description. Speaking comparatively,
confinement in a Chinese prison was much more severe than such
floggings as were inflicted in this court.”—Fo. 311.
- Case 3, April
17.—“It is satisfactory to learn that the district magistrate in the
city has already taken steps towards the investigation of the case
of the murder of Moh Yungohing, at the tea-shop in the Maloo. We are
informed that the four prisoners were before him on Thursday. Koo
Ching-chee and Moh-lee, who are charged with the murder, were
secured in chains, and during the trial had to kneel on them with
the full weight of their body, their feet being braced up. Neither
would divulge the names of the others who took part in the murder,
and for this they were beaten with hammers on the ankles, but still
they were obdurate.”—Fo. 395.
- Case 4, May
15.—“We hear that one of the prisoners convicted a month ago for
stealing ginseng from a foreign cargo boat died in the Shantung Road
Hospital on
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Wednesday. He
was sentenced to three hundred blows, which were given, and to six
months imprisonment.”—Fo. 567.
- Case 5, May
27.—Escapes from jail.—“One of them
gained notoriety in February last by filing a thick chain while
serving a sentence of eighteen months imprisonment. He was captured
a day or two afterwards, and for his diversion was sentenced to
receive 400 blows and to be imprisoned for an indefinite period, at
the direction of the police.”—Fo. 512.
“From time to time one reads in the Peking Gazette of criminals sentenced
to punishments the mere thought of which is enough to make the blood run
cold. When such a barbarous mode of execution as the slicing into pieces
is that recognized and approved by the highest authorities in the
empire, it is easy to believe all the horrible tales of cunning cruelty
that torment much and hold the sufferers long which are occasionally
brought to light in the provinces. The distinction between legal and
illegal methods of question is perfectly illusory, nor in any case is
there much to choose between them. Each and all are alike sickening,
whether we try to realize the, sensations of a victim hung up by a thumb
or toe, a wrist or an arm-pit, having his joints squeezed, his back
scourged with hooks, or his eyes smoked with pungent incense.”—Fo.
437.
[Extracts from “Stories from a Chinese
Studio,” published recently by Mr. Herbert A. Giles, of Her
Majesty’s Consular Service.]
“The judge in a Chinese court is necessarily very much dependent on his
secretaries, and, except in special cases, he takes his cue entirely
from them. They take theirs from whichever party to the case knows best
how to; cross the palm.’”
“The real tortures of a Chinese prison are the filthy dens in which the
unfortunate victims are confined, the stench in which they have to draw
breath, the fetters and manacles by which they are secured, the absolute
insufficiency even of the disgusting rations doled out to them, and
above all the mental agony which must ensue in a country with no habeas corpus to protect the lives and fortunes
of its citizens.”
