hear of its innumerable horrors? The ut terly mistaken notion of China which is so widespread at home is due in great part to this very unwillingness to look straight in the face what a French writer has so well called the " rotten East." In another corner an unfortunate creature was undergoing the punishment called " kneel ing on chains." A thin, strong cord had been fastened to his thumbs and great toes, and passed over a hook in an upright post. Then, by pulling it sufficiently, he was of course lifted off the ground, his knees being the low est part of his body. Under them a small chain, with sharp-edged links, had next been coiled in a circle, as a natty sailor coils a rope on the deck. The cord had then been slackened till the whole weight of the man rested upon his knees, and his knees rested upon the chain. The process seems simple, but the result is awful. And this man had been undergoing a prolonged course of tor ture. Among other things, his ankle-bones had been cracked by being hammered with a piece of wood shaped like a child's cricket bat. His tortures ended for the moment while we were looking at him. Two attend ants loosened the cord, and he fell in a heap. They rolled him off the chain and set him on his feet. The moment they let go he sank like a half-filled sack. So they stretched
him out on the floor, and each of them rubbed one of his knees vigorously for a couple of minutes. But it was of no use; he was utterly incapable of even standing, and had to be dragged away. As we passed out, a woman was before the magistrate, giving evidence. Her testi mony, however, was either not true enough or not prompt enough, in the official's opin ion, for he had recourse to the " truth-compeller." This is a pleasing little instrument, reserved exclusively for the fair sex, shaped exactly like the thick sole of a slipper, split on the sole part, and fastened at the heel. With this the witness received a slap across the mouth which rang out like a pistol-shot. It is only fair to add that the Chinese have a sort of rational theory of torture, al though they are far from adhering to it. By Chinese law no prisoner can be punished until he has confessed his guilt. Therefore they first prove him guilty, and then torture him until he confesses the accuracy of their verdict. The more you reflect on this logic, the more surprising it becomes. To assist in its comprehension I procured, by the aid of the consul and a couple of dollars, a com plete set of instruments of torture, — light bamboo, heavy bamboo, ankle-smasher, mouthslapper, thumb-squeezer, and sundry others. — Henry Norman, in the Boston Herald.
