Readers will remember an account given not long ago, by our Newchwang correspondent, of che capture by Peking detectives, in that port, of a noted brigand and murderer, named K'ung, who had high Manchu official of the Imperial Court eloped with the infatuated daughter of a
Vice-Presidents of the Board of Punish-rumour gives the name as one of the of January, states that at the first two trials ments. A Peking despatch dated the 28th 10 of Kiang before a special tribunal in the wane Board of Punishments, although very cruel tortures, such as kneeling on heated iron chains, being pricked with red-hot noed-les, etc., had been administered to. make 13 him confess to the formidable list of some 10 twenty-nine robberies with murder in each 5 case, of which he had been' accused, 2 Kang, in. spite of his collar-bone, around 10 which a chain had been passed, being oe partly bare of flesh, and his ankles being in a shattered condition to prevent his 10 chwang to Peking, sturdily refused to sign trying to escape while en route from New-5 his name to the list, Being a man roto cro 1019 to crom tom eres Ento te 110 of magnificent physique, his constitution and determined will were such as to defy all the extra physical pains of the two trials, for without his signature to the charges the Court could not sentence the man, although there was not the slightest doubt that K'ang was really guilty. 'The investigating judges were, therefore, at their wits' end. It had clearly been demonstrated that cruelty and force had no terrors for their prisoner, and further torture would probably send him to his last account, in which case banishment to a distance of 3,000 li would probably be too light a punishment for the judges. An appeal had therefore to be ie to K'ang at the third trial, and the judges changing their tactics became his "suppliants. " "It was true," they said,."that he (K'ang) had heroically borne without a murmur or a wince the most frightful treatment and most, a hero! No one would dare now to excruciating tortures. He was therefore say, after all he had suffered, that K'ang Lao-pa was not the greatest hero of, present times. His deeds and exploits all
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.