He then went on to complain of the telegram which had been sent stating that there was no foundation for the rumours which it had mentioned. I, therefore, gave him the details of the incidents which had been told me, though, as I pointed out, I withheld all names. One of the nurses in the Red Cross Hospital, of which I was the treasurer, had a brother who was 2 servant inside the governor's yamen. He had told me some of the things which he had heard from this brother. "A Hunan man," was the governor's reply, "they never tell the truth."
The next witness was an employee in a shop, the manager of which was a Christian. This employee's father had been "examined" and had been so badly treated that he sent a message to his family asking them not to intercedo for him as he preferred death to living on in such pain as he then had. A third Hunanese witness was a well-to-do landowner whose estates lie outside' the city. He met the procession of condemned men on their way to execution and averred that their bodies bore the marks of ill usage plainly visible to every passer-by.
Ihe Governor put aside this witness on the ground that the criminals were not: exposed to the public gaze—but in saying so the Governor was not well informed.
My fourth was one of my own servants who had seen the bodies of the criminals after execution and some of them still bore the evidence of a frightful torture which had been employed: skewers had been driven in under the finger nails and were still protruding at the wrist. However, "All Hunanese are eri was sufficient to rebut this evidence.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.