•
848
name.
There is a mortgage on it for $15,000. There is no other charge on it.
By the Coart-The annual profit is not estimated in cash. It was not necessarily in land; it was by the accounts, The partners did not draw shares of the profit, but the interest was divided at $80 per $1,000 per annum. There was not a separate account for each partner; the payments out were put in the cash book. Sometimes special lendings were given to partners. The partners only drew their interest. No one overdrew.
Ma Fat Ting said he was a sleeping partner. His saying that he did not see why they wanted to question him about matters reported in his petition caused some amusement.
Young Tak ho, the assistant manager of the bank, a partner, was also examined.
Mr. Hastings, solicitor, was appointed trustee. The examination was left open for the present, the case being adjourned.
LI YING EXPARTE MA YING PO.
In this case Mr. P. W. Goldring also appeared for the petitioning creditor.
Ma Fat Ting declared-I am the managing partner of the Lai Hing firm. The partners are Quong He On, Wong Yu Tong, Ma Fat Ting (witness), Shung Lai Kong. Mo Pun Tong and Chan Ming Ke. Some are not here, in Hongkong; Mo Pun Tong alias Lau Wai Chune is.
.
Mr. Gedge said he represented Mr. Lau Wai Chune, who denied partnership.
The Official Receiver said that witness had been away from the Colony, and had not filed his statement. He asked that the examination
be adjourned for a week during which time the debtor be required to file his statement.
To this the Court assented. Mr. Gedge said that his client Mr. Lan Wai Chune denied partnership and asked leave to question witness.
This was permitted, and in answer to Mr. Gedge witness said that there was no proof that Mr. Lau Wa Chane was a partner except by witness's statement. No one knows about it and there was nothing in writing.
Mr. Goldring and Mr. Beavis, acting on behalf of creditors, objected to these questions. An issue is to be tried. The case was adjourned.
CANTON NOTES.
FROM THE “CHUNG NGOI SAN PO.”]
KWANGTUNG ENTERPRISE. To further the construction of San-Ling Railway, in the Province of Kwangtung, shares are being offered in America and other foreign countries to which Chinese hare emigrated. It is said that shares of the company have been anxiously applied for by the Chinese of the San-Ling district and also other districts of the province of Kwangtung. It is said that about fifty thousand dollars worth of the first allotment of shares bave been subscribed for. Mr. Chan Yee-hi, who first started the idea of constructing the railway, when he returned from abroad, is at present visiting various foreign places to raise the capital for the rail- As shares have beeu favourably accepted by the Chinese emigrants, he is expected to return soon,
and then the work of constructing the railway will commence.
way.
DISHONEST OFFICIALS.
1
:
|
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
↑ before they conld secure appointments, and sometimes twenty or thirty thousand dollars were spent to obtain a situation of a lucrative one, but of late the expectant mandarins hesitate to accept appointments which are offered to them without money and without price.
CANTON BANKING,
During the last_month_several bankshops named Kai-Hing, Kwang-Fung, Wing Shun, Shun Loong, etc., have fallen in bankruptcy. The business is at present greatly hampered on account of the tightness of the money market. The banks opened by the people of the northern provinces, which generally lodged large sums of money with the native banks, refuse at present to advance
any sum to them and, moreover, they have lost the credit of the people, who refuse to deposit money with them, and as soon as their sums are due, they cashthem at once. Such occurrence is unpre- cedented, the bank shops in Canton very seldom failing in solvency in former times. The cause of their recent defaulting is that they lost over two million taels at the end of last year and about a million taels at the beginning of this year on account of the failure of other people and shops. It is feared that some more bank-shops will follow. suit.
CORRESPONDENCE.
JUDICIAL TORTURE IN CHINA.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRESS.
SIR-I have to express my thanks (also on behalf of the Founders' Committee) for your kindness in drawing public attention to the movement started in this Colony for the abolition of judicial torture. As far back as 25th January, 1905. you mentioned in a paragraph that I had published in the Chinese papers of Canton and Hongkong a translation of an Italian work on the subject of judicial torture. On the 18th May, nearly four months after, you kindly dedicated a leader to the subject, referring also with great pleasure to the abolition of ling-ch'ih through the influence of H. E. Wu-ting-fang. We also are very glad that China is now listening to enlightened men like him, and this gives us great confidence in the success of our movement.
There is, however, a paragraph in your leader which is not correct, and which I, therefore, quote in extenso :—
*L
In the account of the doings of these good
"hearted people, which was supplied to the press, no mention was made of the fact "that the object of the little society had "been secured.'
We could not stafe "the fact that had I can assure you on the Lest never occurred. authority that the Edict referring to the abolition of ling-ch'ih contains n thing about the abolition of torture to ex ort evidence or confession.
**
(June 3, 190 ST
Let me quote the opinion of one of theg reat Roman jurists, Ulpianus, who died more than sixteen hundred years ago and, therefore, lived in times when people enjoyed gladiatorial com- bits, and even ladies held down their thumbs to have a gladiator killed who had furnished poor sport when "Christianos ad leones" popular cry.
it
Was 8
Quaestioni fidem non semp-r, nec tamen nunquam habendam, constitutionibus declaratur: etenim res est fragi is, st "periculosa, et quae veritatem fallat. Nam plerique patieutia sive duritia tormentorum ita tormenta contemnunt, ut exprimi eis
"C
T6
居屋
*
56
veritas nullo modo possit: alii tanta sunt
'impatientia, ut (in) quovis mentiri, quam
pati tormenta velint; ita fit, ut etiam vario " modo fateantur, ut non tantum se, veru- metiam alios commin-ntur." Digestorum Lib. XLVIII, Tit. XVIII., 23. As you see, Ulpianus never refers to the cruelty of the practice, as probably he was too much accustomed to it to consider it as such, but he points out that very rarely it can be depended upon, and that most people (at least in his time) were able to resist torture, while others reck essly accused themselves and others through their impatience to suffering. He considers it unreliable, dangerous and deceptive. You have here a thoroughly unbiased opinion by a man who had no sentimental objections to the practice but who, through his large experience, had found it an unreliable instrument of justice.
Z. VOLPICELLI,
**
meant
[It must at once be admitted that we were in error in regarding the two movements as identi- cal in object. So few people choose words nowadays with any regard for their exact mean- ings that we did not think of attaching special meaning to the phrase "judicial torture." We read the contributed report as referring to an ordinary agitation in favour of reducing the severity of Chinese punishments. This is made very evident elsewhere in the comments quoted; and we have,herefore, suppressed one paragraph of our correspondent's letter, which might cause careless readers to imagine that we had attempted to defend the absurd practice of "torture," implying "twisting" evidence or confession from the tortured. Having thus acknowledged that there was a misunderstanding, we may call our correspondent's attention to the fact that the exact meaning of the word "torture is not such an admitted certainty as to allow of the 8 fe absence of all ex lanation as to the objects of the local Society. The contributed report of its doings contained nothing beyond the phrase 'judicial torture" to enlighten the public as to the exact objects of Chev. Volpicelli and his friends. The dictionaries define torture as severe pain inflicted judicially, either as punishment for a crime, or for the purpose of extorting a confession from an Cher. accused person."
Volpicelli only the latter; we were thinking of ling-ch'ih as a "judicial torture," which it is. The judicial torture in England, inflicted for the last time in May, 1640 (vide Macaulay's history) referred equally to the treatment of convicted pe sons. Crabb, in discussing the difference betwixt "torture" and "torment" calls the
excess extort fist an
of the second, and citas the Indian tortures inflicted upon captives, with no ulterior motive other than pleasure in tormeut. We do not think that the word was coined expressly to describe methods of for ing evidence, &e. Coming from torqueo, to tw., it may we have d scribed ancient ways of nishandling human limbs. Evidently, "to avoid mistakes" (such as we were led into) our correspondent must not depend upon the "judicial torture phrase to specify his particular meaning. After which, it only remains for us to add our assurance that we did not need the somewhat stale evidence of Domitius Ulpianus to persuade that evidence extorted by physical
is utterly worthless. Every English chool child laughs during its history lesson at the old English witch test by wat r, in which, if the lady would not drown, she was adjudged guilty, and if she did drown, was declared innoc nt.
We are sceptical about the recent Chinese reforms; bat wish the Judicial Torture Abolition So-isly every good wish. If we had a criticism to offer at all, it would be “Quid obseratis auribus fundis preces;" but instead we will take the earliest op- portunity of helping to open those sars. Ed.]
It seems that you have misconstrued the object of our movement. We have taken "torture in its most exact meaning as the
suffering to employment of cruel evidence or confession. To avoid mistakes we
have carefully specified our meaning by defining it always as judicial torturo.
Our object is not, therefore, the abolition of cruel punishments for the guilty, but the abolition of the infliction of excruciating pain, often much worse than the oruellest death, on the innocent as well as the guilty. We con- sider the latter object more humane and more general, and we also consider that it will bring about the former object. In fact one cannot
expect people to be disinclined to inflict cruel pain on the guilty when they are willing to inflict it on the innocent.
Since the provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi have been under the sway of smart Viceroy Sham, whose strictness had already overawed the mandarins, a great number of officials, especially magistrates and military officers, have bolted. The late magistrate of Heungshan district who was dismissed a year ago from office, absconded two days ago, for he still owes four thousand taels, being revenue collected in Heungshan district during his term of office, which he has not yet paid to the Government. He knows quite well that Viceroy Sham is not an easy one to deceive, taking the precedents of his brother officers, who have either been locked up in prison, ban- ished to the military posts to work, or to suffer the extreme penalty of the law, so that he finds no safer way than to follow the guidance of the other smart ones who have all got away scot free. In former times the Canton expectant offloors had to spend a large sum of money in making presents to the high authorities' evidence against him.
Let me also point out that our view is not emotional, but simply judicial; we consider that the principal objection to the use of torture to extort evidence or confession is not that it is cruel, but that it is absurd. It not only inflicts great pain on innocent as well as guilty, but it affords a last chance for the guilty, as a insensible nerves may escape by his resistance to torture, while according to our laws he' would be condemned simply on the strong
criminal with
us
torment
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