Lan Ting-yüan

“ However, as the pretended wife and son had worn sackcloth and carried funeral staves, interring the body with every outward demonstration of respect, the beggar’s soul must have had a good laugh over the whole affair down in the realms below. ”

“ The wife of a man, named Chêng, once came before me to complain that her husband had been driven to commit suicide. She said that he had been beadle of a certain village, and that having had some trouble in collecting taxes from a man, named Hsiao, who withheld his title-deed and refused to listen to argument, the latter, on the 13th day of the moon, had collected a number of friends and wrecked the house, beating her husband so severely that, in despair, he threw himself into the river and was drowned. ”

“ It’s all very well to be callous when other people are concerned; but now that you stand charged with this murder and your own necks are in peril, it being my duty to commit you to prison, do you mean to tell me that you are willing to take the consequences?” The accused men then burst into tears, and implored me to save them; to which I replied, “Here is this man Chêng, who was formerly an accomplice of thieves, alarmed by my appointment to office, disappears from the scene. ”