70 SUKGEON-GENERAL C. A. GORDON, M.D., C.B., Q.H.P., ETC., 



allowed any voice in the decision ; for if the officei' were wrong, he 

 would stand in a very awkward position with his superiors, the high 

 authorities of the province, whoso place it is to review his decision, 

 and if it be incorrect, to denounce him to the bureaus in the capital. 

 As to the division of punishments into two, i.e., the death 

 punishment being divided into decapitation and strangulation, 

 they are again sub-divided; but decapitation or strangulation may 

 take place after an appeal to the Emperor, which would give a 

 prisoner a respite up to the following autumn assize, as it is called, 

 or later. Then there is death by slow degrees, or flaying alive. 

 That is a punishment commonly inflicted on rebels or for very 

 grave offences, parricide for instance. I would here refer to the 

 paucity of these punishments, which I think the Author remarked 

 on towards the end of his paper. It is very true, on the whole, 

 that punishments are not extraordinarily frequent, and indeed it is 

 my impression though the Chinese, like civilized nations, commit 

 every crime in the calendar, yet on the whole, if you consider how 

 inferior their civilization is, how supine the government is, I 

 believe there is not an extraordinary amount of crime in the 

 country, as compared with what I have heard and read of in 

 India. I have never done more than set my foot there, from time 

 to time, but I should say that in India crime appears to me a 

 great deal more frequent than in China. At the same time when 

 dealing with such crimes as rebellion or piracy, the government is 

 not sparing of severity. In the great T'ai P'ing rebellion, Canton 

 was besieged by a certain section of these T'ai P'ing rebels for four 

 months, and all the heads of the provincial government were 

 beleaguered in the city without being able to stir out of it. The 

 force at last broke up for want of funds. They had in their 

 ranks very few of what we should call the i-esponsible class in 

 China, and certainly none, I should say, of the well-to-do people, 

 but having broken up for want of funds, the government 

 immediately reasserted itself. Rebels were brought in by the 

 thousand to be dealt with in the city, and it was computed, 

 and I fully believe it, that in the few months during which 

 the Governor- General Yeh charged himself with the complete 

 suppression of that rebellion, he beheaded 7'2,000 people. 



