P L A T E XXI.
THE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT OF THE CORD.
THE usual capital punishments in China are strangling, and beheading.
The former istlie most common, and is decreed against those, who
are found guilty of crimes, which, however capital, are only held in the
second rank of atrocity. For instance, all acts of homicide, whether
intentional or accidental; every species of fraud, committed upon government
: the seduction of a woman, whether married or single;
giving abusive language to a parent, plundering or defacing a buryingplace;
robbing with destructive weapons: and for wearing pearls. It
would not, perhaps, be possible to form any probable conjecture of the
motive, which has induced the Chinese legislators to attach the pain of
death to the wearing of a precious gem. The fact is, therefore, only
stated from the Information of various writers, and remains to be
expldned by some future commentator.
Criminals are sometimes strangled with a bow-string, but on general
occasions, a cord is made use of, which fastens the person to a cross,
and one turn being taken round his neck, it is drawn tight by an
athletic executioner.
Men of distinction, areusuallystrangled,as the more honourable death;
and where the Emperor is inclined to shew an extraordinary mark of
attention towards a mandarin, condemned to die, he sends him a silken
cord, with permission to be his own executioner.