196
Consul-General in which he states that as a general rule all
7
prisoners are tortured.
}
On 8th. November, the Consul-General re-
ferred to a Despatch from the Viceroy requesting the extradi-
tion of one Liao Yu, who was charged by the Chinese Authori-
ties with being a notorious robber and rebel. I replied en-
quiring whether in the event of his extradition an Official
delegated by the Consul-General would be permitted to attend
at the trial. To that enquiry the Consul-General replied de-
clining to approach the Viceroy on the subject.
A correspondence ensued, as I declined to
hand over any man from the protection of the Britisk Flag to
such tortures as are indicated by the following passage from
the letter of the Consul-General of the 11th. December, 1900.
"The forms of torture legalised in
Chinese Courts are so barbarous, so cruel, and so futile that
if their abolition could be secured in the way suggested it
ought to be worth while to make the attempt.'
With this letter were enclosed copies of
Foreign Office Despatches of November 2nd., 1882, and Septem--
ber 6th., 1882.
In the meantime two other men were arrest-
ed here on a charge of piracy for whose extradition demands
were made, but I maintained the attitude assumed in the cor-
respondence quoted above.
In November, 1900, another case occurred
which emphasised the danger of the mode of extraction of con-
fession by torture and the utter unreliability of evidence so
extracted.
In