JOURNAL OF OCCURRENCES.
Leenchow.—On the 16th instant, reports reached Canton from Governor Loo at Leenchow, saying, that the mountaineers had broken forth again in all directions, plundering, and murdering the people. He-ngan the imperial commissioner ordered two forts to be built, on two commanding hills, to awe those who had recently been in rebellion. But the highlanders waited till the commissioners had set off for Peking, and the troops were withdrawn to Canton, when they assembled, and attacked the workmen; and, after putting them to death, laid their works in ruins.
It is further rumoured, that a large party of banditti in the neighbourhood of Shanchow, a little to the eastward of the late seat of the insurrection, have commenced resistance to government, under the appellation of the Yangteefan association; or "the iron bar political union."
On the 26th, it was reported that Governor Loo had sent to the Fooyuen for the Wang-ling, or royal order in his keeping, that he might put to immediate death three hundred members of the Triad society, whom he has seized at the hills. It is his purpose not to leave one of them alive.
Decapitation, &c.—On the 22nd instant, seven men, and on the 25th, several more were beheaded, at the usual place of execution in Canton. In a former number we mentioned the decapitation of seventeen individuals. These executions are performed in the most public manner, and are of very frequent occurrence, amounting to many hundreds, and some say from one to two thousands annually; they are noticed, in the court circular, in the most summary' manner. Without even mentioning the names or the number of criminals, it is simply slated, keue fan jin peih: such and such officers reported that, "the execution of the criminals was completed."
The design of such exhibitions, so far as they are intended to be a terror to evil doers, is very good; but it may well be questioned whether the end proposed is attained. Such gross exhibitions of cruelty, so frequently presented, not only shock the better feelings of the human heart, but tend to render the hardened more hard, and the desperate and cruel still more ferocious. Especialy must this be the case, when there is but little moral feeling, and when there is no fear of omniscience, nor apprehension of a just retribution in a future state of being. Many in China, not only of banditti, but of the "best classes" also, are atheists, and deny the immortality of the soul. With such principles.—or rather with such a want of principle,—oppression, or want, or passion, urges them on to desperation, till they fall victims to the "paternal laws" of the land.
Suicide, which cannot, as in England, be here attributed to gloomy weather, is owing to the erroneous opinions entertained on religion We should tire our readers were we to notice all the cases of this kind, which we hear of. While writing one account, another and another, is reported. A youth belonging to one of the government offices, being prevented by his father from marrying a prostitute, went, and with her took a dose of poison in their wine. He perished; the woman's life was saved by an early emetic. He, probably, was last attended to, and when it was too late. The poison had taken its full effect, and life was extinct.
We hear, also of banditti coming at night, and carrying off young
