472
CHINESE PENAL CODE.
AND CHINESE PRACTICE.
upon
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[Jane 30, 1906,
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
is the penalty-the theft of more than Tis. 120, our columns. It is stated that since 1904-5 the robbery, kidnapping by violence, opening a coffin, Government has obtained remarkablý ɛuatia- homicide, attempted murder, certain medical factory results from its systematic encourage-- errors resulting in death, causing to commitment of live stock breeding, Pearling, enterv suicide, wounding a government officer, striking prises are lately making good progress. There One of the most important of the many
one's master (in case of a slave), striking a parent are at present 3,164 fishery associations and" important changes now being introduced into (decapitation), and so on. It is evident that there 211 marine products associations, enconrsøed: China is the re-modelling of the penal code is room here for reform. The Chinese laws by an Imperial Fisheries Institute. The which His Excellency Wa Ting-fang and some against bribery are stringently severe. Popular number of industrial companies regis others are engaged, says Professor Giles, It is opinion would have it that the "itching pilm "tered is 2,384, with capital of about two quite plain that if China is ever to secure the is to be found whenever and where there is a hundred millions. At the beginning of the abolition of extra-territoriality it will only be yamen, and that the very rare exceptions merely decade it was only 838. The export trade after she has convinced the foreign Powers that prove the rule. But on paper, at any rate, it is to China has grown in ten years from a total she has a code comparable with those of the a highly dangerous thing to accept a bribe in value of nine million yen to nearly ninety-nine... West and a judiciary above suspicion of dis. China; the mere acceptance of eighty taels for an millions. In the case of Hongkong the increase honesty in its administration. That this will nolawful, or of a hundred and twenty for a lawful was from eighteen to twenty millions only, take time is certain. That the first step to-object, renders the peccant official liable to death though the value olimbed to nearly forty-two wards it is that now being taken is no less sure. by strangulation. But this serves only to show millions in 1901. Imports from China ross There are many things in Chinese law which in how wide is the difference between what ought to from twenty-three millions in 1895 to fifty-three theory appeal to the judicial mind as being be and what is. The main reason why Europeans, millions in 1905, the figures (in round numbers) - almost all that might he desired, but in prac ice British in particular, are loth to go law is the for Hongkong being eight and eleven millions have much to be condemned. Even in the question of expense. There is in China another respectively. The volume of foreign trade, West the most perfect paper schemes sometimes in addition. Litigation is actually discouraged beginning in 1868, was doubled in 1878, again fail when put to the test, and as China has been to this extent that any person filing a false in 1888, 1895, and 1902; "if the same rate is decadent for long, it is not to be wondered at charge is punished more heavily than the accused maintained hereafter, the volume of trade that her penal practice is very different from would have been had he been guilty. Even if will reach Yen 1,060,000,000 (£108,606,557) in her penal code.
the charge is false in degree only, there is a 1909", Much is hoped in Japan from the proportionate penalty. while authors of Panama canal opening, when it comes and also anonymous charges (true or false) render them from the railway exploitation of China. Deal: selves liable to strangulation. One of the short- ing with last year, the report says, "The export comings of the present Chinese position is the trade of every description, excepting that lack of recognised means for the ready making which depends upon climatic conditions con- and promulgation of new laws. This will be a tinued its steady development in 1905. In spite matter which must come up for serious consid. of the absence of no small number of able- eration in the near future, since the admission bodied men at the front, and, in spite of the of China into the comity of nations will impose fact that the people had to furnish supplies for upon her the duty of keeping up to date in law an immense army in over-sea lands, the country as in other things.-Straits Times.
was able to send au increased quantity of manufactured goods to foreign markets, and further was in a position, while paying extra- ordinary war taxes, to make increased purchases abroad". The adaptability of the people to circumstances is shown by the fact that the war demands instead of making inroads upon their savings, actually increased them, having, it is explained, “ encouraged the' practice of economy." It was as if a man whose income had been reduced ten per cent, met the change by reducing his living expenses fifteen or twenty per cent. Not the least interesting feature of the book is a new one, a section devoted to the reorganisation of Korean fluances. Consideration of this department-is* eferred for later opportunity.
For the beginning of her judicial system we should have to go back to the days of the Chows, when the Greeks were still round Troy, or Saul was King of Israel. There was cer tainly an elaborate codification accomplished in the Han Dynasty (B.C. 200 to A.D. 200) by Hsiao Ho, when no fewer than 359 distinct laws were placed in the statute book, with endless additional clauses and quoted precedents. These in the case of capital punishinent alone ran to 409 of the first and 13,472 of the latter. Hsiao Ho's monumental work has served as a model for all the codes of the various dynasties since his time.
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The code at present existing is based largely upon that of the Mings, and is divided into seven sections relating to methods of punish ment, officials and their responsibilities, fiscal and family laws, religious, ceremonial and sumptuary law, laws relating to military organisation and frontier defence, criminal lawS and laws relating to public works.
Strictly legal punishments are flogging with the bamboo, imprisonment or banishment, and death by strangulation or decapitation. The legal instruments are the bamboo, the cangue, the iron chain, the wooden manacles, and fetters of iron. There are permitted, however, two others at the discretion and on the responsibility of the magistrate the finger-squeezer, and ankle- squeezer. These with the bamboo are the "three wooden instruments" so terribly known to the native delinquent. Mr. Giles, who seems to have written prior to the recent decree abolishing" torture, declares that torture, though not unknown in China, exists there practically in name only ".
The Chinese recognise ten "heinous crimes", rebellion, destruction of imperial tombs, trea chery to the State, parricide, triple murder in one family, sacrilege, filial impiety, family discord, official insubordination, and incest. No mandarin, it would appear, ever attempts to master the vast agglomeration of statutes in the present code. He relies on the knowledge of a "law expert”, much as the magistrate la Pickwick did upon his clerk.
The section on fiscal and family law con tains many interesting enactments. If a man adopts a son he must be a boy bearing the same surname. A son may not set up an establishment apart from that of his father. Thus the family remains as the national unit. A man may have any reasonable number of concubines but only one wife.
Capital punishment is permitted in two forms strangulation and decapitation. Recently it has been rumoured that in the new code the latter is to be abolished. [It was. The natives regard the loss of the head as being a far greater punishment than the mere loss of life, since in such 08863 the disembodied spirit must perforce present itself in the nother world in the mutilated form. There remain a very considerable number of capital * off-noes in Chinese law, such for example as the following:-High tesson, parricide, and the murder of a master by a slave, which are theoretically punishable by "lingchib," the frequency of which Mr. Giles vigorously denies. Then follow others for which strangulation
JAPANESE FINANCES.
The sixth financial and economic annual of Japan (1906) published by the Department of Finance, reached us two days ago. It contains, as usual, matter for many days' digestion To glance over the ten coloured plates of diagrams is sufficient to gain a vivid impression of the growth of Japanese trade, and to whet the appetite for the arrays of figures and excellently written notes that follow in nearly three hundred pages.
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In ten years ordinary revenue and expenditure have risen from 100 million yen (each) to 400 million yen and 350 million yen (respectively The taxation per capita in the same decade has risen from less than two yen over five yen, including extraordinary and special tares. Ordinary taxation per head stands at three yen. The national debt in 1896 was under 400 million yen (less than ten yen per capita); in 1906 it is nearly 1.900 millions, or nearly forty yen per capla. The war was, of course, responsible for practically two-thirds of the debt. The pro- duction of rice, silk, yarn, copper, iron, coal, and petroleum all show steady increas; and in ten years the value of imports grew from 175 million yen to nearly 500 million yen. Bank deposits nearly doubled themselves in half the decade, the augmentation of savings being strikingly appareat in the diagrams from which these statements are made. The prices of the principal boads and shares all show a decided up. ward tendency. Traffic mileage of railways just doubled itself in the decade, while their earnings were more than trebled in the same period. Steam tonnage was trebled.
The budget for the financial year 1906-7 shows an increase in ordinary revenue of Yeu 21,460,000, the gross increase of taxation being Yen 35,600,000. Ordiuary expenditure increased by Yen 161,300 000. Of a total estimated expenditure of 494 million yen, only 241 milions is normal, the rest being due to the war.
The much abused Tobacco Monopoly seems to have started well. The manufacture of cigarettes started in July 1904, and of cut tobacco in April 1905, with such good results that the net profit exceeded the estimated amount by seven million yen in the first year and by twelve hundred thousand yen in the second. We hear, however, what is not stated in this book, that the quality of the cigarettes has somewhat deteriorated. Other monopolies are salt and camphor, the latter being necessary because the increasing free output in Japan was affecting the Formosan business. Many of the other notes have already had attention in
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DASTARDLY AFFAIR IN
HONGKONG.
LADY DANGEROUSLY WOUNDED ST ROBBERS.
An outrage, unfortunately attended with grave injury to the person, was perpetrated at Leighton Hill Road on the 23rd June. Mrs Aoki, a Japanese lady, wife of Captain Aoki, superintendent for the Nippon Yusen- Kaisha's Hongkong lid of steamers was! attacked st her residence, 4, Leighton Hille Road, by some robbers who had entered the- house while she was the only occupant and-- stabbed with knives. Injuries were inflicted which render her condition very grave,
The circumstances are as follows. Captainė Aoki had left the house at his TENTİMİ : hour ia the morning, the Chinese:: servant. had- gone to market, and the miscreants, probably advised by someone who knew the movements of the household, took advantage of the absence of the others and made- their raid on the house. Not unlikely Mræ Aoki, hearing unusual sounds below, went downstairs! to investigate, and there she came upon the robbers, who instead of taking to fight, turned upon her. When the boy returned he wan“- horrified to find Mrs. Aoki lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. She asked him to send for a doctor and her husband. * He did no, and- later the police were apprised of the occurrence. and when they arrived they had the unfortunata lady, who was suffering from knife wounds "in / the abdomen, arms-and-care, removed to the Government Civil Hospital.
A knife was found by the polios in the^^ kitchen and not far from it wan'uyug" which had not been used but which showed that the robbers were prepared for i doubtedly the lady must have resistance, and though she
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