Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/223

to eat, sleep, and have their being in such proximity to one another as a chain 18 inches in length necessitated. One pair of these artificially constructed Siamese twins I met taking a walk in the courtyard. "How long have you been chained together?" I asked. "Two hundred days," was the reply. But perhaps most pitiful of all were four narrow upright cages of wood, each containing a human victim. Amongst these behold my friend of the day before, who, after receiving 1000 strokes with the bamboo, had been caged up. These cages hang from the gateway arch, so that all who pass by may see and jeer. The lid of the cage is of wood, and closes round the victim's neck, which protrudes through a circular hole, the head thus being left outside the cage. A single narrow rung constitutes the floor of the cage, upon which the wretched inmate is constrained to stand hour after hour for the simple reason that if he did not he must infallibly fall through and break his neck. The particular individual in whom I was interested said that he had stood thus all