Page:Ningpo to Shanghai.djvu/114

100  whilst Sze-chuen, Yun-nan, Kwang-se, and Kwei-choo, pay very little.

8.&mdash;Page 6. It is an axiom that in China the institutions and practices of Government are directly the reverse of those in Europe. In the administration of justice this is illustrated; and, proud as we are of our forms of trial in the abstract, there is room for believing that benefit would accrue were we to borrow somewhat from the mode of Chinese procedure. A writer in the Chinese Repository for September 1833, says.&mdash; "Justice is often administered in the most summary manner. Not infrequently, in minor cases, the man receives the punishment and again goes free the same hour in which he commits the crime.

"The forms of trial are simple. There is no jury, no pleading. The criminal kneels before the magistrate, who hears the witnesses and passes sentence; he is then remanded to prison or sent to the place of execution. Seldom is he acquitted." This non-acquittal arises in the majority of cases from the circumstance of all the facts being elicited by the Elders, (who, in reality, are both Grand and Petty Jury) before the criminal is remitted to the Yuen. The writer goes on to say&mdash;

"When witnesses are wanting, he is sometimes tortured until he gives in evidence against himself." This atrocity, we have reason to believe, is found to occur in district cities principally&mdash;Police Magistrates in cities relieving Elders of their customary patriarchal duties. These Stipendiaries, no doubt, are very severe in their mode of eliciting truth.

Illustrative of the difference in magisterial proceedings, is the course pursued at Hongkong, where, until very recently, examinations in chief were 