Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 79

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Journal of Occurrences.

lying among others built upon, for it is not regarded as a thoroughfare; during most of the time it is occupied by the workmen of a pottery manufactory near by to dry their furnaces and other ware, so that it is literally, a potter's field. This place near the Tien-tsz' mátau, or Imperial landing-place, on the southern side of the city, parallel with the So-( kiải, or Rain-cloak St., and opening into the Tsúng- tsien kin or Granary-front St.; there being no fence or gateway between the latter and the fáh chiung, or law arena as the spot is called, whenever an execution takes place, the street gates on both sides of the opening, and that at the lower end towards the river are all shut as soon the officers arrive with the culprits. This compels all passengers who may be going by at the time to stop in the street until the execution is completed, and the gates are reopened; the rush to see the bloody corpses is then very great, few persons being admitted as spectators.

It is shocking to witness the indifference with which life is taken on these oc- casions; and the moral effect of such scenes to prevent crime is nothing at all. A few days ago, twenty heads were cut off. The wretched criminals were brought from the prison borne on men's shoulders in small cages hardly large enough to hold them doubled up in the smallest compass; the bearers put the cages on the ground, and actually emptied the prisoners out by turning them over, just as if they were already carcases. The executioners used large hangers, and while the officers in attendance are making ready, these callous men are vaporing about and showing the spectators how neatly they can do the bloody deed. On this occasion, the criminals were all dressed in clean clothes; these are sometimes given by the officers, and are always desired, under the idea that the spirit ap- pears before Yen-lo-wáng in hades in the dress the body had on when it left. The provincial judge, the prefect, the two district magistrates, and a centurion, who acts as the deputy of the colonel in command of the city, were all present with their lictors. The criminals were all made to kneel in a row facing the south before them, and their names read off by a clerk; there were five heads- men, and eleven swords standing in a row along the wall. One of them took a sword, and as a man held up the pinioned arms of the criminal behind, thus forc- ing his head horizontally forward, he struck it off with a single blow, the head- less corpse falling along on the ground, and he wiping the blood from the blade on his jacket. He replaced the weapon, and took up another, and after the fifth had been executed, his turn came again; and thus the whole five took turns, each one decapitating four persons, and using two swords. Not a word, not a sigh, not a grean, proceeded from any of thein, and in a few short moments af- ter they were brought on the ground, their gory heads were thrown together in a pile, even before the contortions of the muscle of the chin and neck had ceased, and their bodies left upon the ground; the heads often remain until they become bare skulls, but no obstruction is put in the way of the relatives taking away the corpse and the head, except in atrocious cases when the officers order the head to be exposed in a cage where the crime was committed as a warning to offenders. As soon as the dreadful ceremony was completed, the officers and their atten- dants, with the procession of empty cages returned into the city; as the gates were opened, a great crowd rushed in to behold the bloody corpses, among whom were probably friends of some of the victims, ready to carry away their remains. In case no one appears to claim them, the authorities order them to be buried in a golgotha on the eastern side of the city called mán yan chung. Of- ficers or persons of note are usually carried to the spot in sedans; as the chair is set down on the ground, and they are ordered to step out, the executioner stands ready, and strikes off the head as the person stoops to pass out. Criminals sen- tenced to the slow and ignominious death, sometimes called "cutting into ten thou- sand pieces," and to strangulation, are bound to a cross before their execution.

The town of Victoria in the colony of Hongkong has been ordained to be a city, and the island of Hongkong and its dependencies erected into a bish- op's see and diocese, to be called the Bishopric of Victoria. Rev. George Smith, D. D., well known as the author of a work on China, has been conse- crated as the first bishop of the new see. He left England in November last, in company with a number of clergymen, and may therefore be expected soon to arrive, and enter upon his duties.