Chinese Justice

An American who has spent some years in the far east recently described to a party of frIends a Chinese executIon that he witnessed several years ago:

Upon our arrival in Chefu the day before we had called at the American consulate, perched high on the top of a hill that commanded a wide sweep of sea and land, and had been told that upon the following morning, which was now here, there would be executed in the public market place the second batch of pirates who a little time before had been taken prisoners in flagrante delicto and to whom but short shrift had been shown.

These pirates were part of a band that had for several years infested the lower reaches of the Yellow river, doing a great deal of damage to merchant vessels and occasionally in the absence of victims better worth their while swooping down upon the towns and villages that lie along the banks of that great stream.

Naturally this was felt to be carrying matters too far, and the governor of Shangtung was notified by the imperial government that if he could not prevent such unpleasant occurrences it would be considered tantamount to a confession that his head was of no further use in its present place, and it would be promptly removed.

Of course the governor wished to avoid such a catastrophe, as irreparable as disagreeable, so a fleet of decoy merchant vessels was at once fitted out and sent up the Yellow river, and when the pirates bore down upon it instead of the valuable and harmless goods they had a right to assume would be stored in the hold of these innocent and apparently defenseless boats they found them to be filled with Chinese soldiers as courageous as the marauders they had come to destroy, men who when the lust of battle was come upon them neither gave nor expected quarter.

Upon landing we made our way with difficulty (or rather had it made for us by the deferential little Japanese officer who served as escort to our company) through a crowd of stolid looking natives, whose garments showed direst poverty and their faces the most pinching want. Their close ranks parted before the determined onslaught of our small guide, closing up after us as the tall grass that had bent before a strong wind comes again into place when the breeze has passed by!

From the moment of our appearance upon the scene we were quite literally the cynosure of all eyes, for the ordinary' Chinese cooly still has a most overwhelming curiosity concerning white people, a curiosity that custom never seems to stale and that expresses itself by the most fixed, Intense and absolutely expressionless stare.  So the crowd of yellow, mask-like faces grew and thicker around us; the dark narrow, slanting eyes watched us unblinkingly, and if there was wonder, contempt, hatred or fear in their hearts 'they gave no outward sign.

We had gone forth that morning jauntily enough to see a righteous judgement executed upon men who had sinned against every law, human and divine and had expected to be very philosophical indeed, not to say stoical, when such hardened criminals as these should suffer the extreme penalty of the laws they had outraged. Before they appeared on the scene we thought only of their crimes, but when the wretched procession came into view the doomed men, ragged, dirty, worn beyond description, but stumbling along bravely enough with bound arms and tethered legs, all the wrong doing of which they had been guilty became in an instant of little moment as compared with the sanctity of that life of which this great gaping crowd wants to see them robbed.

Coming just In advance of the straggling line of prisoners came the executioner and his assistants, the latter carrying the dreadful implements of their work. The rear was brought up by a small squad of armed guards, who slouched along with the indifference characteristic of their kind the world over.

With one exception the condemned men seemed to be between thirty and forty years of age. This exception was a lad of not more than seventeen, and, while his comrades were going to their fate with a stolid resignation and even a sort of rude dignity, this boy had evidently worked himself up to a species of hysteria and was alternately shouting, laughing and singing at the top of his voice. No one tried to silence him or seemed to pay the slightest attention to him, for it was too patent that he was making a last frenzied effort to go to his death as a brave pirate should, and his dreadful mirth did not cease until the executioner stood before him. For the space of a breath there was a terrible pause, while the man and the boy looked into each other's eyes; then the signal was given, the hapless creature was jerked to his knees. his head was pulled forward, the broadsword cut heavily through the air and another headless body dropped prone upon the ground.

This is the method usually followed at public executions of this sort. The men who are to be decapitated are placed in a line at sufficient intervals from one another so that the sweep of the executioner's arm will not be interfered with. As the time of each one comes an assistant pushes the man to his knees; another. who stands in front, pulls the head of the unhappy wretch forward by his cue so that the neck will be well stretched and present an easy mark to the descending sword, one stroke of which usually completes the grim tragedy. We were, however, told at Chefu by a man long resident in China that to die by one stroke of the sword was considered a very great favor to one condemned to death and was to be gained only by powerful personal influence on the part of friends or by the simple expedient of "crossing the palm" of the venal agent of justice with a goodly piece of silver. If neither means were used and if in addition the crimes for which the man was to die were of a particularly heinous nature, the executioner is expected to prolong the death agony by administering several blows instead of one.

Some arrangements had evidently been made with the lower ministers of justice at Chefu whereby these pirates were to be given the mercy of a quick death, for, at least while we were able to remain, the first stroke was also the coup de grace.

The seventeen-year-old boy was the third to die, and as the assistant threw the bleeding head to the ground the nerve and stomach of our little group failed utterly, and, turning, we pushed our dizzy way out of the crowd, away from the dreadful spot where the sickening fumes of freshly shed blood rose up to pollute the sweet morning air.