In the case of R. v. F. G. Keeling there was a feature which seems to deserve very serious consideration. As our readers will remember, Keeling was accused of a murderous assault on a young Chinaman, striking him with a hoe and inflict 2 dangerous wound in the ribs. With the exception of what the prisoner said in self-defence, all the evidence as to what actually occurred was Chinese, and was manifestly designed rather to convict the foreigner than to describe what each witness really saw. It is not our intention to call in question the punishment inflicted on the prisoner, which certainly was not severe if the Chinese story was believed by the Judge; but we think it right to point out that, if the natives are to be allowed to tell deliberate lies with impunity when giving evidence against foreigners, there is always the possibility of a frightful miscarriage of justice. Our lives will be at their mercy, and the sooner it is made clear to them that severe punishment will follow perjury the safer we shall feel.
A woman named Lolo Yen, who was standing near when the assault took place, declared that two blows were given with the business end of the hoe—neither of them with the handle—and that the prisoner had not spoken to the complainant before proved by the complainant himself. striking him. Two lies here, as Cheng Tchu-ching, the father of the complainant, had the cool effrontery to admit that the elaborate story of the assault he described at the Police Court was all ay invention of his own, as he did not witness it. His explanation was that he thought at that time that his son was going to die. This beautiful excuse was apparently accepted as satisfactory by the Judge, as we do not gather that any rebuke was administered to the lying rascal. Another witness, called hong Chow-sha, said at the Police Court that there were no women} present, and excused himself at the trial for this lie by saying that the ladies had requested him not to mention their presence. The prisoner apparently told a straightforward story, as he admitted everything of which he was accused. His statement that he had complained two or three times at the Consulate about the removal of his boundary stones, and also at the Mixed Court, does not appear to have been denied, so he had considerable provocation and some excuse for cuffing the complainant. Of course, we are not legally entitled to take the law into our own hands, even when we have applied in vain to the proper authorities for protection, but the temptation to do so that assails a man of somewhat violent impulses is sometimes difficult to resist. However, there was not sufficient evidence on the prisoner's side to show that he was Justified in self-defence in using such 'a dangerous weapon as a hoe, and he seems to have been justly punished.
But whether the prisoner was justly punished is not the question we are interested in discussing. What we should like to know is whether the Chinese who, on their own admission, gave false evidence at the Police Court are to be proceeded inst. If the injured lad had died itis only reasonable to assume that the evidence against the prisoner, who would have been in a still more serious position, would have been proportionately elaborated. This kind of thing ought to be promptly stopped, and we hope the authorities will see fit to take steps now that they have such a clear case. We admit that it may not seem just to expect a Chinaman to realise the enormity of giving false evidence, and only a very sanguine person would think it possible to teach Chinese to be truthful, but a danger to our lives and liberties which might easily become serious should certainly receive attention. In the present yielding temper of the British Government, we do not know how soon we shall relinquish Extraterritoriality, and we ought to educate the Chinese accordingly. It seems monstrous that the lying father of the complainant should get off without even a reproof, and we hope he will be taught, as an example to others, that while he may luxuriate in lying as freely as he pleases in the ordinary avocations of his sordid existence, he must speak the truth, or as near it as his natural falsity will allow, when he gives evidence against a foreigner in a Police Court.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.