The Number
Of Criminals Who Are Executed From This Prison, Either As Sentenced To
Death, Or As Unable To Bribe The Officials Any Further, Is Supposed To
Be About Five Hundred Annually, And It Is Further Supposed That Half
This Number Die Annually From Starvation And Torture.
Sometimes one
hundred criminals are beheaded in an hour, as it is feared may be the
case on the Governor going out of office, when it is not unusual to
make a jail delivery in this fashion.
In numerous cases, when there is a press of business before the
judgment-seat and a dead-lock occurs, accusers and witnesses are
huddled indiscriminately into the Naam-Hoi prison, sometimes for
months; and as the Governor or magistrate takes no measures to provide
for them during the interval, some of the poorer ones who have no
friends to bribe the jailer on their behalf, perish speedily.
At night, in the dens which I have described, the hands of the
prisoners are chained to their necks, and even in the daytime only one
hand is liberated. I thought that many of the faces looked quite
imbecile. The jailer, as we went out, kept holding out his long-clawed,
lean, brown hand, muttering about his promised kum-sha, very fearful
lest the other turnkeys, who were still lying on their beds smoking
opium, should come in for any share of it.
Mr. Henry,* my host and very able cicerone, is an American missionary,
and as such carries with him the gospel of peace on earth and good will
to men. Surely if the knowledge of Him who came "to preach liberty to
the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound,"
were diffused and received here, and were spread with no niggard hand,
the prison of the Naam-Hoi magistrate, with its unspeakable horrors,
would go the way of all our dungeons and bedlams.
[*I cannot forbear adding a note on the extent of Mr. Henry's work in
1881. He preached 190 times in Chinese, and five times in English; held
fifty-two Bible-class meetings, and thirteen communion services;
baptized forty-five adults and eight children; traveled on mission work
by boat 2,540 miles, by chair, eighty miles, and on foot 670 miles;
visited 280 different towns and villages, and distributed 14,000 books,
receiving assistance in the latter work only on one short journey. His
life is a happy combination of American energy and Christian zeal.]
But this is not all. From the prison it is only a short distance to the
judgment-seat, and passing once more through the "Gate of
Righteousness," we crossed a large court infested by gamblers and
fortune-tellers, and presented ourselves at a porch with great figures
painted on both its doors, and gay with the red insignia of
mandarinism, which is the entrance to the stately residence of the
Naam-Hoi magistrate, one of the subordinate dignitaries of Canton. In
the porch, as might have been in that of Pilate or Herod, were a number
of official palanquins, and many officials and servants of the mandarin
with red-crowned hats turned up from their faces, and privates of the
city guard, mean and shabby persons.
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