A FavoURITE present in the old days from residents in Canton to their friends at home used to be a series of so-called rice-paper pictures of Chinese punishments. They were so barbarous that people could hardly believe that so highly civilised and courteous a people, with 8 settled government which counted its existence by thousands instead of hundreds of years, could tolerate them, but they went far to justify the belief commonly entertained in the West, that the Chinese are utterly careless of human life and suffering. Philo-Chinese writers, who believe that the advance made by China in its military preparations has extended to other branches of government, have suggested that these punishments only exist uow on paper, and that even the ding chih process of slicing a criminal to death is so modified in practice as to be actually merciful. hey have only to walk into the city of Shanghai this morning, a few minutes' task, and they will find one of the most revolting of these punishments in full operation, and its infliction applauded by all the Chinese who know of The victim, Koh Lao-we-tze, is, it is allowed, a hardened ruffian, For ten
his time in jail, and has thriven upon it, he has passed the greater part of and the specific offence which he is now expiating, is his habit of blackmailing, the new prisoners who were put it, jail with him, He is suspended in a cage about five feet high, with his head through the top in a wooden collar, sv that he cannot reach it with his hands, and with his feet, which are loaded with chains, so far from the bottom that he can only just touch it when standing on tip-toe. Here he is condemned to stand, without food or water, list inside the outer gate of the Chehsien's yamen, the sport of hundreds, until death puts an end to his sufferings; and a photograph of the cage and its occupant would be a telling frontispiece to the Marquis 'I'stny's recent article on the Awakening of China," lly, 0 doubt, the exhibition ofa prisoner in this torture is supposed to act as a deterrent to crime. Practically, Koh Lao-we-tee isa popular hero, We found him yesterday, as he is described in the Hupao, laughing and joking with the mob round him, and bandying coarse jests with them and his guard, though they are represented as being "all full of admiration for the magistrate's firm and intelligent admiration of justice, calculated to greatly rejoice the hearts of meu." Fortunately for him, as it appears at first, though unfortunately if the Chehsien carries out his intention of leaving him in his cage until he di the people are kinder than their magistrate. Some one has given him a stone to stand on, and some one. else gave him yesterday morning some rice and water and a pipe: it may be that the sight is such an amusing one, and the victim is such a witty fellow, to judge by
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.