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serious crime, is tortured or is liable to torture, if he
refuses to admit his guilt, in the worst form conceivable by the barbarous ingenuity of his judges.
Through my instrumentality three men
have lately been sentenced to five years imprisonment
besides receiving 100 blows with the heavier bamboo, that
is, the Chinese assure me they have been sentenced to die
within twelve months of the horrors of the Magistrate's
prison. Abhorrent as a this is to me, it would nevertheless
in me be a grave dereliction of duty to refuse to press for the arrest and punishment according to Chinese Law, of pirates, the desecrators of Foreign graves, and other
criminals.
I feel confident that His Excellency
will not fail to perceive that if I complied with His Excellency suggestion not only should I be acting contrary to my instructions but that while for the object in view even my sucess ~ would be futile, I should throw doubt on the bona-fides of the guarantee given by His Excellency
the Acting Viceroy and make a distinction between criminala
sem kisiva all veną vaďansk arrested and those surrendered by His Excellency the Governor of HongKong which even on the score of humanity could hardly be sustained and as I have already ventured in a former despatch to point out, a guarantee would ~ apparently be given by Her Majesty's Consul-General here in a matter over which he has particularly no control. In addition, an impression would be created that all. questions or doubt on the subject of the judicial torture of criminals surrendered under the extradition ordinances by the Government of HongKong at any rate, had finally been done away with, when nothing of the kind had really
been effected.
In my opinion the control of the prisors in which such prisoners are incarcerated could alone, so long as the law and procedure of china are what they are,
achieve
: