Lawrence Dundas

“ My interest in Chinese reformatory methods was sufficiently aroused by this glimpse to induce me to pay an unofficial visit to the yamen courtyard on the following morning, and the insight into Chinese magisterial methods which half an hour's inspection gave me, more than repaid me for my trouble. In the street itself, immediately in front of the courtyard gateway, lay two stiff and twisted corpses, scantily clad in rags and tatters,—two hideous distorted human husks, pitchforked out of the adjacent prison just as they had died during the night. ”

“ The cave-dwelling aborigines are despised by the Chinese, who call them Man-tzŭ or wild people. Facing the town a huge Buddha, 304 feet in height, is carved crudely on the cliff, while in dim outline in the distance, looming faintly through the mist, I could just make out the far-famed summit of Mount O-mei, the sacred mountain of Western China. ”

“ The lid of the cage is of wood, and closes round the victim's neck, which protrudes through a circular hole, the head thus being left outside the cage. A single narrow rung constitutes the floor of the cage, upon which the wretched inmate is constrained to stand hour after hour for the simple reason that if he did not he must infallibly fall through and break his neck. ”