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About Lincoln County leader. (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 17, 1900)
kRE HUMAN FIENDS. CHINESE PRACTICE DEVJLISH FORMS OFJTORTURE. Of All Peoples on Kartb They Are the Moat Cruel and Delight in .tonic Drawn Out i'uuiuliiuent home ot Their byieui. Uf all races ou the face of Uie earth tiie umuese are the most cruel, tue most devoted to tearful torture ot tuose iu tueir power aud tue most adept in devising ever new loiuis of luaityruoiu lor tue objects of their iiatred. iu their almost simple cruelty they are lower Uiau the uuimals. It tuey merely ue ligiited iu torturing, one migut Bay it vaa a perversion, but they do hot merely denght iu it. They torture liv ing creatures, from rats to mau, as a simple matter of course, aud tiie iiative victims accept It equally as a matter of course. There Is something supreme ly terrible lu the matter-of-tact, stolid way lu which they subject a prisoner to demoniac palu with as much readi ness as a magistrate would sentence a uiau to speud tea days in jail. To begm with, there Is the whipping and scourging with biimboo rods. This Is so common a method of "preparing" a victim for trial that it Is hardly con sidered puuishment, much less torture. Yet the bamboo Is laid on hard enough to bring blood at en'h stroke, aud, es-' pecially when It Is applied to the soles of the feet, the victim often faints from tin in nrl !i of Klnnil conibined. One hardly can enter a Chinese court of "justice" without witnessing a flog ging. The mildewt punishment that Is known to the simple aud kindly official Chi nese soul Is the cage or cangue. Its principle is that of all Chinese punish ments wlow torture. A Chinaman would take uo artistic pleasure In any thing that killed quickly or that reach- IIUNOIIKAK DOWNWARD. ed Its culmination of pain quickly. Ills victim miiHt suffer a little more, and a little more, and then a little more, each hour. I u that way he makes his de light last long and can keep a whole Hiring of wretches to charm him by their slow dying for months. If he killed them at once his fun would be over too soon. The cangue, then, Is formed to keep the agony of the peulteut up for months, till madness or death end his Bufferings. It Is a delightfully simple thing so simple that I here Is nothing nt nil terrifying about It at first sight. It merely is a large frame of wood, with a collar In the middle, it weighs about fifty pounds, and Is so made that tt can be locked around a man's neck. r i I TUIAL OK A CHINESE BOXEK. When It Is so locked It rests directly ou the muscle of the neck and on the bones of the shoulder, aud It Is so con structed that it cannot be shifted even a tenth of an Inch, nor can the weight be relieved with the bands, lu addi tion, the collar has a sharp rim under neath. At first the victim does not suffer much, except from Inconveni ence. He Is turned loose as soon as the cangue is locked on him, and for an hour or two lie waddles around In fair comfort. But gradually, ns the Bharp edge of the collar cuts deeply Into the flesh of his neck, nud nil his muscles re drawn more nud more tense, pain begins to conquer hlin, aud iu a week the torturers have the felicity of see ing a maddened wretch stumble and fall around blindly, weeping aud yell lug with an mi l ati. HOW THE CHINESE t Victim bound to a cross, while the executioner with a sharp sword slices off parts of his body. The torture sometimes lasts for a day before death ensues. The bamboo furnishes favorite Im plements for Chinese legal torturers. Sharpened slivers of bamboo are used for countless purposes In countless ways. Indeed, If the reader will im agine just what he would hate most to have done to him with a bamboo sliver, he will hit something that the Chinese are sure to do. The most sim ple and merciful deeds are to stick tiny slivers all over their victims and to leave them there to fester. Worse still Is the cheerful practice of driving wedge-shaped pieces of bamboo under the linger or toe nails of accused per sons. This Is done slowly with a mallet. How They Crucify. Crucifixion is a common form of pun ishment, but usually It Is only a mere aceompanlmeut of other horrors. Of air punishments involving crucifixion, the one that delights the official Chi nese heart the most is Iiing-Chee. LIng-Chee is such a brilliant result of Ingenious thought that the executfon ers rarely nail the mau who Is to suffer this form of punishment to the cross. They fear that the pain from that might Interfere with his enjoyment of the real performance, which is noth ing less tiinn slicing him to death with diabolical skill. Therefore the ' man who Is to suffer liug-ehee generally Is bound to the cross. Then there arrives the executioner. An executioner skill ful nt llng-chee Is viewed with high re spect In the empire, much ns a success ful bull fighter is viewed in Spain. To bungle In llng-chee and to slice so much from the victim early' In the game that he faints, or, worse still, dies before he has suffered nil the slicing that has been decreed, would blacken the execu tioner's name forever, aud might even make him the next subject for llng-chee. The executioner is received with a little murmur of approbation, for his record Is ns well kept In mind as Is the record of an athlete In America or Eng land. He bows to the high dignitaries n nd then takes one of his swords from the swoil-cnrrIer who has followed him. They are wonderful swords Hint lire used by the llng-chee1! executioners. Sometimes they are hundreds of years old nud have records so long ami bloody that a person with nerves might well shudder to touch them. The execu tioner does not shudder, lie knows what depends on his delicacy of touch. Swiftly he swings the great weapon around his head till it whistles. Satis fled that It Is ready for business, he ap proaches the victim slowly. First he feints at him and withdraws. Then he makes believe again. Suddenly the sword shoots In wickedly, nnd one of the victim's eyebrows is sliced off so neatly thnt It scarcely draws blood. Now begins wouderful work wonder ful and devilish. It tuny be that the condemned mnn has been the subject of great luiperlnl mercy. In thnt ense be may have been blessed beyond com TORTUkE AND KILlV pare by having his sentence commuted so that he is to be killed lu only twenty sliciugs, whereas hardened offenders might have been sentenced to die only after seventy-five cuts or even more, If the victim Is very lucky, the sword will beat him so swiftly that the eye scarce ly can follow it. At each stroke some part of the poor bound body will fall to the ground. Now It may be a shoulder, WKAK1XO THE COI.LAK. now a piece of the breast, now au ana. Suddenly the last cut is made. It iJ straight at the heart, and the weapon cuts It out nnd ends the sufferings ol the wretched mau. But the spectacle is not ended. The executioner now has t dismember the corpse, nnd this he doei with passes of the sword, each careful ly studied nnd doue accordingly to reg ularly lald-out rules, till there is abso lutely nothing left on the cross nnd only a pile of terrible fragments lies at its base. Plow Torture. When liug-chee Is to be a long opera tion, nnd the victim Is t6 die only after long torture, the slicing sometimes is done so slowly that half a day elapses before the condemned man dies. The executioner knows Just" what to cut without killing, and he goes to work as carefully as would n surgeon. Muscles nnd tendons and flesh are stripped from the body with the razor blade of the sword, until only a dreadful frame work remains that still has awful life In It. And at this terrible spectacle the Chinese gaze stolidly, without nn ex pression either of pleasure or loathing. Another ingenious torture thnt Is much URed Is to suspend the condemn ed man with his head down In a pit. At the iKittom are snakes, toads nud all kinds of loathsome reptiles, which writhe within a few Inches of the vic tim's face. Here he Is left until the torture of the position, hunger, thirst and reptile bites kill him. Dressmakers and Bud Fits. The dressmakers are meeting with such disaster in their attempts to col lect through the courts bills for drenses for which payment Is withheld ou the ground of a bad tit that there Is talk of a dressmakers' trust or some sort of a protective association. The advocates of this movement say It is Impossible for au ordinary mau Judge to tell whether a gown tits or not If the wear er wants to make It appear otherwise. Models of Inventions. B. .C. GUI, superintendent of models In the patent office nt Washington, mis charge of about 400,000 models of Uni ted States Inventions granted during a period of something over a huudred years. The mnn who nlwnys speaks the truth is sure to have other virtues. . All Is not gold that glitters. Some times it is a dinuioud. Kf fei WEARING THE BEST SELLING BO Not One that Is Mentioned in Monthly Literary Reports. "Several of 'the literary magazines publish lists every month of the most popular books," Baid the representative of a large Northern publishing house who is in the city looking after the Southern trade. "These lists are com piled from data furnished by dealers and public librarians at different cities, and the volume that usually occupies first place is, of course, the novel that happens to be the fad of the day. As a matter or fact, however, nonetif them have ever printed the name of the book that is really most popular and actually the best seller, not alone for this month or last month but for every month of the year. That book is the Bible. It may surprise you to know," continued the speaker, "that the Bible is selling better to-day than at any time since it was first printed. Last year, from Jan. 1, 1899, to Jan. 1, 1900, the American Bible Society nloiie issued nearly a mil lion and a half copies. The exact fig ures are 1,420,801. Of course the so ciety is an immense concern, but there are several others in the United States and a number in England and Europe, all turning out nothing but Bibles. They publish them In every conceiva ble shape, from the beautiful Oxford editions In flexible covers at $25 apiece down to the little cheap volumes iu fine print that retail for a nickel. Now adays a very good, serviceable B.ible is sold for 50 ceuts. It has all the latest and best notes, several colored maps that edition has been enormous and has run into the hundreds of thousands. The wars on both sides of the water have had a very marked effect In In creasing the demand for Bibles. You can make a calculation of the total force in the field, both English and American, and then count on at least one Bible for each soldier. Some of the boys who went to the Philippines got upward of a dozen, aud most of the soldiers' Bibles were handsome, substantial copies. I think, seriously, that the old stories of Bibles that have stopped bullets have Influenced many a mother, sister or sweetheart in the selection of a good, thick volume in preference to one of the thinner and lighter editions.' Yes, the Bible is de cidedly 'the most popular book.' Its copyright for six months would make a man rich beyond the dreams of ava rice." New Orleans Times-Democrat. Hands AVere in His Pockets. There was a garden party for a char itable object out, in the suburbs one evening recently, and for the space of one long minute In the latter part of the evening I though I was about to witness what they call on the stage a thrilling situation. I went to stroll In the grounds with a young girl who wanted to ask my advice about what she had already made up her mind, and we wandered where Japanese lanterns were few. She was telling me all about Charley or, perhaps It was Dick when suddenly in the dim light before us we saw the young man himself, nis back was toward us, and he was walk ing somewhat closer than was entirely necessary to a girl in a light organdie frock. The gown looked almost white in the faint light, but about the waist of it was a wide band of something dark. The girl beside me stopped short aud drew a deep breath. "Oh!" she gasped. Just then the couple in front of us stepped into the bright light of a lan tern. The wide black band was still about the girl's waist, but both Dick's hands were In his pockets. My com panion drew another long breath. "Oh!" she said again. Washington rost. Olla Peddler of Mexico. This picture represents a native Mex ican olla seller peddling his wares. The. olla is a water cooler. It Is made from SELLING HIS WAltKS TO TIIE IttlRSTT. pottery, and the water remains cool a long time in this earthen vessel, whlcb Is In universal use In the households ot Mexico and In mauy sections of the Southwest. Matches. One firm In Austria uses ten tons of phosphorus a year, and turns out over 25,000,000,000 matches. Another com pany, an English oue, uses 100,000 pounds of sulphur, 100.000 feet of choice white pine timber and 150 tons of straw'ooard for boxes in the same time. The most tireless folVvers of fortune are a man's creditors- FIGURES FROM PHILIPPINES. Interesting Facts Relative to Our New Possessions in the Far East Manila, with Its $40,000,000 trade, its 110,000 population and its position as the metropolis of Luzon, will require a larger force of officials. In this island alone there are 123 cities having a pop ulation of from 9,000 to 40,010 each, in addition to 185 cities having a popula tion of less than 9,000 and more than 4,000 each. To administer the govern mental affairs of this single Island, with Its 3,500,000 inhabitants, will re quire on a conservative estimate the services of 3.500 officials, at an annual cost of $3,500,000. This assigns only one official to each 1,000 of population, which official must be a sort of com posite postmaster, revenue collector, Judge and clerk of all work, and he must be satisfied with an average sat ary of $1,000 a year. In Mindanao, with Its 010,000 population, there are only eight large and eighty-four small cities, but lu Cebu there are twenty-four cities over 9,000 and sixty cities under that figure, with a total population in the Island of 504,000. The Island called Panay has 071,000 souls, with thirty four cities over the 9,000 mark and sixty-one under that figure. These are not savage shacks', but centers of in dustry, of agriculture and of commerce, imauy of them with cathedrals, schools, palaces, telegraph and post offices. Be tween 9,000,000 and 10,000,000 people occupy the Philippines. The market reports of Manila are in teresting as showing the cost of sus taining life Iu iuv iu.vuiiuut tropics. The prices are quoted in Mexican sil ver, which Is about half the value of America )i ?old. Potatoes cost 5 cents a ponnd i . onions 10 cents. Cabbages sell for 25 cents a head and pumpkins are worth 30 cents apiece. Fish is cheap, but, strange to say, fruit is high. Bananas sell for 25 centa a dozen and oranges for 35 cents a dozen, while one large Chinese orange costs 22 cents, and cocoanuts are worth 8 cents each. Some of the fish are unknown to our markets. There are the dorado, the dapa, the bocadulce and asasa, which will be news to Aerlcans. The boca dulce Is the most expensive fish on the list and sells for 40 cents each. It ought to be good, for Its name translated means "mouthsweet." A first grade hen- In the Manila market sells for $1.10. The regulation of the markets in Manila seems to have been the ob ject of several experiments since the American troops have occupied the city. TOLD BY FOOTPRINTS. Tell-Tale Shoes Worn by a Man in a Searching Party. "The part played by footprints in the frightful tragedy near Blloxl re minds me," said a New Orleans rail road man, "of a most remarkable affair which happened a good many years ago In South Georgia. The keeper of a little store near the Florida line was murdered one night and the place set on fire. Several negroes were suspect ed and the whole countryside turned out to search for evidence. In the rear of the burned. store was a marshy place, In which the footprints of the murderer were plainly discernible, showing that he had worn a pair of heavy brogans, the right heel of which seemed to have been split in a very peculiar manner directly across the middle. "Among the searchers was a well-to-ao young farmer, and ns soon as he saw the footprints he was horrified to recognize the marks of his own shoes which he had on at that very moment. The split heel was the result of a chance, blow with an ax while cutting wood, and the . impression in the marshy soil was absolutely unmistak able. The crowd was worked up to a pitch bordering on frenzy, and, realiz ing his extremely critical position, the young man had presence enough of mind to make some excuse and Blip away. He went straight home, put on another pair of shoes, hid the old ones and rejoined the party. "Two or three days later the crime was traced by certain circumstantial evidence to a negro who worked on his farm. . The follow broke down and confessed and Incidentally cleared up the mystery. On the night of the mur der, according to his story, he had no ticed the brogans on the porch of the farm house, and appropriated them, In tending at the time to merely rob the store and ily the country. After kill ing the storekeeper he changed bis plans and came home, thinking to di vert suspicion by remaining quietly at work. Consequently he returned the shoes where he found them. "After he had made tb.ls confession the farmer told his own story and pro duced the tell-tale footgear. Heaven only knows what might have happened had he been caught with them on bis feet the first day of the search." New Orleans Times-Democrat Trying to Restrict the Franchise. A proposed franchise act in Manitoba prohibits voting by persons who are unable to read and write the English language. This provision is aimed at the newly arrived Galaclans and Douk hobars, who are disposed to retain their former language and customs, tfnd who are said to be undesirable clt sens In other particulars.