purpose of the authorities. The accounts of the recent massacres in Armenia, which have been spread before the world by reliable correspondents and by official reports, reveal what Turks and Kurds are capable of in the line of diabolical cruelty. An incident reported by Mr. Donald Mackenzie, special Commissioner of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which fell under his own observation at Hodeidah, illustrates the awful possibilities of cruelty in a land of irresponsible power like Arabia. In Persia methods of punishment involving excruciating torture are resorted to, as illustrated articles in The New York Tribune of May 10, 1896, and The Graphic (London) of August 15, 1896, recount in detail. The latter article, reproduced in The New York Tribune of August 30th, gives an account by an eye-witness who succeeded in obtaining a photograph of the scene, describing the burial alive of five prisoners in a preparation of plaster of Paris, so placed as to enclose the body up to the chin-a method of execution which is attended with intense suffering, as the plaster soon swells, hardens, and stops the circulation. In this instance the victims were selected from the prisoners in the jail at Shiraz, and were put to death not because of their personal guilt, but as an example to strike terror into the hearts of the population and put a stop to pillage and robbery in the province, the actual perpetrators of which the authorities were not able to secure. The bastinado, and mutilation of the person, with other ingenious devices for inflicting suffering, are characteristic features of penal administration throughout Persia. It is reported of the late Shah that his method of punishing some obstinate subjects of his realm who tampered with the telegraph-wires when they were first introduced into Persia, was

1 Consult Blue Book of the British Government, Turkey, No. 3, 1896, on the condition of the Asiatic provinces of Turkey previous to the massacres; and Bliss, "Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities," on the massacres themselves.

2 "While at Hodeidah I saw a most revolting sight: just outside the principal gate of the town, in a Mohammedan burial-place, I found a poor old man chained, perfectly naked, exposed to the burning sun by day and dew by night, with no shed or covering of any kind; the poor fellow was quite insane. I found, from inquiries, that this wretched man had been chained at this place for seventeen years; that he had been a powerful sheikh, but a more powerful one had ruined him and chained him in the burial-ground near the highroad for caravans, and opposite his rival's house, so that every one could see the latter's power in the country. The inhuman wretch who did this farms the Customs of Hodeidah from the Turkish Government. I asked our Vice-Consul how it was that such a disgraceful thing was permitted; he replied that he had made representations to his chief at Jeddah, but could not obtain any satisfactory answer."- The Anti-Slavery Reporter, December, 1895, pp. 217,

3 Wilson, "Persian Life and Customs," pp. 116, 119, 184, 185.

to bury the offenders alive, one at the base of each telegraph-pole, as a hint that he would allow no trifling with his administration and no opposition to his will. In Central Asia the prisons are described as inexpressibly foul, and imprisonment is apt to be attended with dismal tortures. In Afghanistan there are characteristic cruelties of penal discipline, to which reference has been made by a recent correspondent of the London Times.3

In India the police administration has always been characterized by cruelties which even British administration has not been able wholly to stamp out. In a report of the commissioners for the investigation of alleged cases of torture in the Madras Presidency in 1855, the subject is dealt with in considerable detail, and aggravated instances of cruelty on the part of the police are brought to light. The punishment even of school-children used to be a species of torture.5 Many of the penalties recommended in the Code of Manu are abominable in character, especially those connected with violations of the proprieties of caste. Under British administration a changed state of things exists, although the shooting of sepoys bound at the cannon's mouth by British soldiers at the time of the mutiny was surely a strange lesson for a Christian government to give to the people of India.

The subject of punishments in China leads us into a veritable Chamber of Horrors, to which Mr. Norman, in his "Peoples and Politics of the Far East," has devoted an entire chapter,

Horrors.

which, with its illustrations, presents a vivid pic- A Chinese Chamber of ture of these frightful scenes (chap. xv.). In the Chinese Empire these things are not done in a corner, but are a recognized feature of judicial procedure. The ingenuity and variety of Chinese tortures have been fully described by standard writers upon the social customs of that strange empire. The infliction of torture is not confined to the prisoner who is on trial, but the unfortunate witnesses are also likely to receive the unwelcome attentions of the inquisitors. There is nothing that the Chinese dread more than the law itself and its administrators. Even a charge of wrong-doing, however unsubstantiated, is usually a signal for a series The Outlook, May 9, 1896.

2 Lansdell, "Chinese Central Asia," vol. i., pp. 55-57, 352; vol. ii., p. 198.

3 Consult The Mail (London Times), January 22, 1896.

4 Raghavaiyangar, "Progress of the Madras Presidency During the Last Forty Years," Appendices, p. lxxii.

5 Wilkins, "Modern Hinduism," pp. 435, 436.

• Douglas, “Society in China," pp. 71–78. Cf. Williams, “The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., pp. 507–515; Ball, "Things Chinese,” p. 472.

of painful ordeals.1 The abominable extremities of the Chinese system do not stop with actual guilt, but the relatives of one who is under suspicion, especially if his crime is proved, are often regarded as equally amenable to the law.2 Chinese executions are usually by beheading in public, the execution ground being open to all. The stroke of an executioner's sword is a comparatively merciful proceeding; the prisoner may be thankful if he escapes the process of lingchi, which is being cut to pieces while still alive. The prisons of China are described as "loathsome, horrible dungeons, the scenes of cruelty and barbarism too fearful for description." 3 In his chapter on "The Absence of Sympathy," Rev. Arthur Smith refers to the "deliberate routine cruelty with which all Chinese prisoners are treated who cannot pay for their

1 “Cruelty in various forms is shamefully tolerated. For example, their legal punishments include breaking the ankles with mallets, death by starvation, the condemned being exposed for days in a wooden cage, and that in an extremely painful position, and death by slicing the body of the criminal with a sword, but delaying the fatal thrust. Their prisons are frightful dens. So, generally, indulgence in ungoverned rage leads to all manner of cruel acts, from the sickening beating of a fallen animal to the choking almost to death of an offending child."-Rev. W. P. Chalfant (P. B. F. M. N.), Ichowfu, Shantung, China.

"The Chinese are a cruel people. Their punishments are very cruel. Men are imprisoned, beaten, and tortured for slight offenses or on mere suspicion, and often before any hearing of their cases. Thousands die in China every year from torture, beatings, exposure in filthy prisons with insufficient food and clothes-'done to death,' accidentally or purposely. Undoubtedly a good percentage of these are innocent of the crimes laid to their charge. Beheading is the mildest form of capital punishment. Flaying alive and cutting in pieces are legal punishments for great crimes."- Mrs. C. W. Mateer (P. B. F. M. N.), Tungchow, China.

2 "It is painful to watch the course of the law in China. Its rigor frequently defeats its being carried out, and the guilty parties too often escape because the innocent will have to suffer with them. It is supposed that China desires to take her place beside the civilized nations of the world, but, alas! her methods of executing the law in the treatment of criminals keep her among the barbarous people of the earth, a place, by the way, that she richly deserves until ready to mend her ways. How often do we hear of the provincial judge returning criminals to the magistrate for reëxamination because the criminal could not endure his brutal treatment, and had confessed to anything to stop the excruciating torture-that gentle, persuasive way of making a man kneel on chains until he can endure the agony no longer, and faints, only to be brought to by a lighted taper stuck up his nose-crushing life out and burning it in! This is civilization with a vengeance, and yet we hear it boasted that China is civilized, has a literature dating away back to the hoary past, etc. China must revise her practices, for other nations have long since stamped such as barbarous, and given them up. Again, the truth is no better arrived at, but rather thwarted, by the barbarity shown."-Edgar Woods, M.D. (P. B. F. M. S.), Tsingkiang-pu, China, The Missionary, July, 1896, p. 303.

3 Holcombe, "The Real Chinaman," p. 205.

exemption." In the Island of Formosa substantially the same system has prevailed.2 In Korea "the vocabulary of torture is sufficiently copious to stamp Chō-sen as still a semi-civilized nation." The inventory of its implements as found in a court of justice or prison is ghastly in its suggestiveness.3 Public executions have always been conducted in brutal fashion, and are often attended with excruciating tortures of the prisoners. According to the old law of the realm, every member of a man's family was equally implicated in his offense. We read of the use of the rack even at the present time.5 Before we leave the Continent of Asia it should be noted that the Japanese, in comparison with all other Asiatic nations, stand in a favorable light so far as the general charge of cruelty is concerned.

If we turn to the Continent of Africa we enter the shadows of pure savagery, and a record of barbarities meets us which is appalling to contemplate. The simple infliction of a death

The cruelties of punishment in Africa.

penalty becomes a comparatively merciful punishment. It is well if an unfortunate prisoner escapes a fate which is full of lingering agony and painful mutilation. In the "Life of Livingstone" instances are given of the severing of members of a living prisoner for even trifling offenses. The use of the knife upon the living victim was often a barbarous preliminary to his final execution. Capital punishment was resorted to as a penalty for insignificant offenses. Even speaking unadvisedly was a crime for which the lips were roughly sand-papered in a way to produce a painful excoriation. The sufferings of the poor slaves throughout Africa make one of the most horrible chapters in human history. Of the Awemba it is reported that they have a "kind of feudal system and discipline which is very strict, the slightest disobedience being punished with loss of fingers or hands, eyes put out, ears and nose cut off. Often through mere caprice these dreadful sufferings are inflicted, while occasionally the chief kills a number of his people simply to let them know he is chief and to keep them in constant fear of him." 6 The cruelties of Lobengula have filled a large place in recent South African history. Severing the nose and the ears of a victim seemed to be commonplace incidents in his administration. Among the Zulus, as the banana was 1 "Chinese Characteristics," p. 214.

2 MacKay, "From Far Formosa," pp. 107, 276.

3 Griffis, "Corea," p. 234.

4 Savage-Landor, "Corea," pp. 248-254. Cf. Norman, "Peoples and Politics of the Far East," p. 348.

5 The Korean Repository, January, 1896, p. 34.

• The Free Church of Scotland Monthly, August, 1895, p. 183.

set apart for royal use, if it was eaten by an ordinary person the deathpenalty was promptly inflicted, and the same punishment was administered for theft. Thieves had their throats cut or their eyes extracted or their hands and feet cut off. In the capital of Ashanti the mere will of the king inflicted death for the least transgression of the most whimsical laws.1 Before the English missionaries entered Uganda, in the days of King Mtesa, executions took place by the hundreds by any method which seemed to suit the fancy of the king. Among the barbarous West Coast tribes the punishment of wives by their husbands is often cruelly painful. Among the Pondos there is a punishment which one can hardly read of without shuddering. The victim is bound or stretched upon an ant-hill from which thousands of virulent ants emerge and proceed to devour him, penetrating nostrils, eyes, ears, and mouth.2 But we must end this dismal recital. Enough has been said to show that a reign of cruelty still lingers in the earth, and that there is a pressing call for some transforming lessons from the Gospel of divine mercy.

7. BRUTALITY IN WAR.-The awful realities of war are in many instances attended by unspeakable cruelties and wild outbursts of brutal passions. Civilization has, however, so far asserted itself as to insist upon every possible expedient for alleviating the miseries of the wounded and restraining the brutalities incident to the conflict. The code governing the conduct of war is now recognized among all civilized na ions, and its humane provisions are of great value in mitigating the horrors of the field, diminishing suffering, securing a proper respect for prisoners and a sufficient recognition of their necessities. With all that has been done, however, to lessen its brutalities, war, even in modern times and among civilized nations, is often attended with experiences which are appalling to the imagination. Even contemporary warfare is not always free from the charge of unnecessary barbarity; and when we consider the facilities for maiming the person and destroying life which are now in use, the question arises whether war under modern conditions has, after all, to any great extent lost its ancient terrors.3

The recent Oriental war between Japan and China, while it revealed,

1 Work and Workers in the Mission Field, January, 1896, p. 18. 2 Ibid., September, 1894, p. 368.

3 Cf. a graphic article by Mr. H. W. Wilson, on "The Human Animal in Battle," in The Fortnightly Review, August, 1896. See also the article Bloodthirst," in the London Spectator, September 19, 1896.