Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 38

1841.

Medical Philanthropic Society.

21

The prisons for slight offenses, and the treatment therein, are very tolerable. Captain Golownin describes the worst in which he and his companions were con- fined at Matsmai, as a row of cages in a building like a barn; and, despite his bitter complaints, it is evident, from his own account, that the cages were reason- ably airy, with provision for cleanliness and warmth; also that the prisoners were reasonably well fed, according to the dietary of the country, though inadequately for Russian appetites. That this was the ordinary prison is likewise evident from several circumstances; such as his having been told, when about to be removed thither from another place of confinement, that he was now to be in a real prison; his finding in one of the cages a native culprit under sentence of flagellation; and the name, roya, 'cage,' given by Golownin as designating this building, and also by old Kæmpfer as the name of a prison.

But this description by no means appplies to prisons destined for heinous offen- ders, tried or untried, and which every account represents as frightful, and appro priately named gokuya—Anglicè, hell. In these prisons * or dungeons, fifteen or twenty persons are crammed together into one room, situated within the walls of the government-house, lighted and ventilated only by one small grated window in the roof. The door of this dungeon is never opened, except to bring in or take out a prisoner. The captives are refused books, pipes, and every kind of recreation ; they are not allowed to take their own bedding in with them, and their silken or linen girdle is exchanged for a straw band, the wearing of which is a disgrace. The filth of the dungeon is removed through a hole in the wall, and through that same hole the victuals of the prisoners are introduced. These victuals are of the very worst description; and although the prisoners are allowed to purchase or to receive from their friends better food, no individual purchaser or receiver of sup- plies can derive any benefit from his acquisition, unless it be sufficient to satisfy the appetites of all his chamber or dungeon-fellows. The inmates of this detestable abode, a detention in which might be punishment adequate to most offenses, being left wholly to their own government whilst confined there, have established the law of the strongest, and that in its worst form; a ruthless democratic tyranny, where the weakest is the minority.

* Fischer.

ART. III. Prospectus of the Medical Philanthropic Society, fon

China and the East. London, 1840.

[From this prospectus our readers will learn with pleasure, that Mr. Lay is not unmindful of the promise made to the Medical Missionary Society at a public meeting in Canton. Along with the prospectus, we have the names of a provisional committee, consisting of the following gentlemen: G. Tra- descant Lay esq., Joseph H. Arnold esq., Horatio Hardy esq., M. Chalmers esq., M. D., Rev. Samuel Kidd, James Bennet esq., M. D., Hezekiah Clark esq., W. Alers Hankey esq. An early day was to be named to organize a society for carrying into effect the suggestions contained in the Prospectus.