Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/221

Rh chair at the entrance to the inner courtyard of his yamen. When the gates were flung open, behold a criminal kneeling on the ground with sturdy lictors standing on either side. My arrival happened to have coincided with the administration of 1000 strokes with the bamboo. At the completion of the first 500 blows, execution was stayed pending my audience, which lasted about twenty minutes, and resumed upon my departure.

My interest in Chinese reformatory methods was sufficiently aroused by this glimpse to induce me to pay an unofficial visit to the yamen courtyard on the following morning, and the insight into Chinese magisterial methods which half an hour's inspection gave me, more than repaid me for my trouble. In the street itself, immediately in front of the courtyard gateway, lay two stiff and twisted corpses, scantily clad in rags and tatters,—two hideous distorted human husks, pitchforked out of the adjacent prison just as they had died during the night. Here they would be left during the day in the hopes that some relative might turn up to claim and bury