COPY.
Enclosure 3.
0.
513 101
RECE
Extract from a Minute by Dr. Ho Kai dated 24 041903.
"The Chinese law on the point is quite explicit, as the Statute enacts that any wife running away from her husband shall be liable to a penalty of 100 blows and shall
be handed back to her husband for him to sell her or to marry
her to some one else as he shall think fit; and it further
provides that should a wife after having run away from her husband marry any other person she shall be punishable with death by strangulation, and that any person harbouring the
run away wife and any person knowingly marrying the same shall
severally be liable to the same punishment; but in their cases
sentence of death shell be commuted and a penalty one degree
lighter in severity shall be imposed.
"From this it will be seen that those
herbouring a run away wife are liable by the Law of China to a
very severe punishment, either to 100 blows or penal servitude
for life or for a period."