Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/584

 Landmarks of Chinese Law. sacrilege, filial impiety, family discord, official insubordination, and incest. Children under seven and persons over ninety are not pun ishable under any circumstances, except for treason and rebellion. In all cases, except those of capital crimes, the punishment proper of offenders under fifteen or over seventy may be redeemed by the payment of a fine. Foreigners guilty of crime were dealt with according to the Code, until wars and treaties brought the extra-territorial prin ciple into force. In Book II. there are laws relating to offi cials. The mandarins seldom know much about the Code, depending upon their ad visers for the necessary information. Sons are not allowed to separate and set up their own establishments. There may be only one legal wife; and a second wife may not be married as long as the first wife is alive; but a man is free to have as many concubines as he chooses. It is custom that limits their number in most cases. Marriage with an actress or musician is prohibited, and priests of Tao and Buddha must not marry. Smug gling is punishable by fifty blows and a for feiture of half the value of the goods, part of the forfeiture going to the informers. In terest on money lent must not exceed three per cent. a month. Property found lying about without an owner is to be delivered to the District Magistrate within five days; if the owner is discovered within thirty days, the finder receives half the sum as a reward. Ceremonial observances and sumptuary laws appear in Book IV. Ancient nature worship is discernible beneath the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth. The very cook-book of Chinese housewives is here made legal, the recipes being detailed according to estab lished practice. If a cook serves illegal food, he must swallow the offending viands and re ceive a hundred lashes. Dress is described for all classes. Cremation and water-burial

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are forbidden, although the children of a man dying in a distant country may consume their father's corpse with fire. And the cremation of priests is tolerated in practice, although it is not provided for in the Code. Book V. is chiefly concerned with military organization and the protection of the tered frontiers. for passing One hundred without permission blows is adminis-. through the gates of the imperial enclosure, and death by strangulation awaits the man who enters the room occupied by the Emperor. Decapi tation and mutilation of the body is in store for the soldier who in the face of 'an enemy sets the example of retreat. Book VI. is rich in criminal law. It opens with the details of a punishment known as Ling-Chee, — "the lingering death"; a slow and painful execution for all persons guilty of high treason, including the destruction, as principal or accessory, of the tombs of the emperors of the present dynasty. Giles states that no one has seen a malefactor sliced to death: but Archdeacon Gray once came upon the remains of a body after the operation had been performed, and gives positive instances. Attempt to steal brings on fifty blows, while actual theft is punished according to a fixed scale, ranging from srxty blows for one ounce of silver to death by strangulation for one hundred and twenty ounces and upward. At the first conviction the criminal is branded on the left arm with the character "Thief"; at the second, with the same character on the right arm; at the third offence, or for defacement of the marks, with death. There are ad valorem penalties for theft of grain and fruit. Stealing from relatives is not punished with extraordinary harshness. Obtaining money under false pretenses is punished according to the same scale as ordinary petty larceny, only without branding. If the victim is wounded in the course of robbery, the criminal is beheaded.