Papers coming to hand recently are full of the Tariff Conference, before that Conference is the question of the abolition of Extraterritoriality. I have jotted down from time to time some events which seem to me very pertinent to the question now before us all, who are aliens in China. And here one might venture to remark that if tality means anything to any-tone in China, it has a very significant meaning to aliens in the back of beyond, such as we who are 1500 miles' west of Shanghai, and to others further west. the Iuckless Magistrate and killed him and threw his body into the This you may say was a just retribution for his gross wrongs to the people, justice meted out by the people and for the people. AS to his deservability, we have question, but where in any court of law could this act of the people be justified?
Now such instances as the above could be multiplied of the maladministration of justice in courts in Szechuan there are myriads of cases. Thus one needs not duplicate those sited below. Bat the application of the parable is of interest to the reader at least.
The First Picture Embryo Law Administration On my way to church the of morning, my attention was drawn to a doorway by erying, which came from the courtyard which opened off the doorway. On looking in T saw a man tied with his hands behind his back, to an ordinary Chinese trestle, such as is used for sit ting around a tea table. The man was stripped to the waist, and the pinioned to the trestle with seating portion of the trestle runing up his back. He was Kneeling. The immediate cause for the wailing which attracted me was the vigorous blows administered to the victim by a man in gentleman's clothing who was later said to be the Major of the soldiers temporarily quartered in this home: The man had been caught at petty thieving. He has been punished by spanking, a very common way of punishment in West China, and then tied to the trestle. While so tied, the officer was periodically pounding the man with a piece of bamboo about the size of an. ordinary broom-handle and the blows were delivered across the torchond and down over the shoulder and across the bare back. With each blow, the officer gave vent to the wor: curses imaginable, against his luek-Jess victim, And all this for petty thieving.
Now, that the man deserved punishment, we do not question. This all happened within five minutes of the Magistrate's yamen, where there was an officer appointed and qualified to administer Chinese justice. But this pompous Major was not allowing—this administration of "justice" be handed to out by the auth He was official enough himself.
Where is there any justice in such administration of the law, the civil law?
The Despoiling Magistrate During the month of July and also of August, the city of Kiating had a Magistrate by the name of Hsing. This official thought that there was no time like the present to get rich. He sent from business place to business place, and demanded large sums from the mer chants. In not a few eases the demands were much mor poor merchants could When they appealed he was reported to say, "well 20° cents worth of coal oil will make a nice fire of your premises, you had better pay me what I demand than have me buy that much coal oil to cause you to: lose all." Such a threat made the cash come from somewhere but more than once ruined the unlucky business man.
But the authorities who appoint. defeated fortunately for Hsiong, he stayed too long in the city and'the citizens seized him. They took him to the Chamber of Commerce for trial, but the Chamber of Commerce refused to deal with the coe Those who had captured the victim, took him from place place to try to get justice, but no oficial would handle' the case. At last in desperation, they pounded While it is true that possibly ess than two per cent. of cases coming before any Consul, are those of Missionaries, none the less true that, if extrality were abolished, we come under the law fas administered by those who wish to take unto themselves, the administration of it, here' in West China, Tt fs not hard to create a mental picture of one, who, for some petty cause which has grieved a local Major or Colonel, is brought to that officer for justice. The quality of the justice measured out depends upon the state of the officer's spleen j.at the time, and just how much he may get himself worked up in the pondering of the case before him. And it is because there are so many of these embryo law administrators in this part of the country, that one justly has a fear as to' what might be done were he to get into the place of the luckless petty] thief, were he guilty nor not.
Now, even were a man willing to take his chance with such eonditions, what about the many single lady workers who are here in West China? Anyone who has anything to do with the present army officials in West China, and it is out of this array that Magistrates are chosen, would shudder to think of alien ladies falling into their hands for the administration of Further the great maj in Szechuan are mar-ith families. If these men were willing ender such uninviting circumstances, to take a chance for their justice from such officials as we see around us, would these same men be willing to take a chance for the administrating of Justice for their wives and children? You say to me, but there very few cases that are brought for trial. reply to that, that this is the time to forestall any such opportunity for such eases to be brought.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.