Page 165 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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to be the real tortures inflicted on unfortunate The more frightful penalty is inflicted called
Chinese, are many of them well known to be ‘Lingche’, or cutting into small pieces. This
entirely imaginary, and founded upon the punishment is also imposed in cases of parricide
religious notions of the natives. 188 or matricide, and no substitute allowed. 190

Europeans believed, so Downing let us know, One decade later, Marcellus Emants (1848-
that because of their reputation for ingenuity in 1923), a Dutch eyewitness, wrote in 1894 about
all kinds of areas, the Chinese showed the same his visit to a notorious Cantonese jail, when, as a
talent in the making of their torture devices. consequence of the Dutch consul in Hong Kong,
According to him, the barbaric torture he took a trip with the paddle steamer Fatchan
164 instruments may have been used in an earlier to the South Chinese harbour city.
time, but that was certainly no longer the case
in the time that he stayed in Canton (1830s). 189 Canton is overwhelming. [...] Lying in a dark
As a foreigner, however, he had no access to the front room are a couple of guys, with a small
centre of town and the courts, so he could not lamp between them, lost in the glory of an
possibly be well-informed about the exact opium haze. A third man sits and, smirking,
punishment and torture practices. That severe immediately shows us the small preliminary
punishments and torture were going on in late- torture devices, which he can make use of to his
nineteenth-century Canton is attested to by the heart’s content, his double bamboo cane and a
recordings of Hunter (1812-1891) in his Bits of double leather rag used to hit the cheeks. [...]
Old China that was first published in 1885. He There are at this moment few prisoners; but still,
witnessed the public beheading of a number of there are a few sitting in musty, dark corners
prisoners in that same year: huddled like cows in front of a slaughterhouse.
Most have irons on their feet; some also have
The prisoners were brought out from the city in wide wooden collars around the neck; others are
baskets, with their hands tied behind them, each tied together in impossible positions and when
one having thrust in his hair a small, narrow slip someone approaches the barred door or a barred
of wood, on which was written his name, his air vent, they push forward, whining like
age, and where belonging, as well as the crime starving beasts and squeezing their skinny, dirty
for which he was to be punished. Being removed arms, begging, through the bolts. There are also
from the baskets, they were placed in rows of wailing lepers and hysterical women and among
four, with their faces turned from the seats the latter, who walk about freely, the merriest
prepared for the Mandarins, who are always one is sentenced to death, she killed her husband
present on such occasions. Lying on a broad and now awaits the arrival of a high Mandarin
plank attached to the wall referred to, were so that she may be quartered for his
several thick heavy swords and short knives, entertainment. 191
which we examined, and close to them stood the
executioners [...] The paper being read, the latter His visual writing meant it was only too easy for
struck the table with a small square of heavy his contemporaries back home to imagine the
wood, crying out ‘Shat’ (Behead). Like lightening grim situation of that time. Furthermore, the
the sword fell on the outermost prisoners. [...] earlier (original?) torture devices that are

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188 Downing 1838; facsimile, 1972, 258-259.
189 Ibid.
190 Hunter 1911, 164-166.
191 Emants, 1894, 532, 536. Translation: Canton is overweldigend. [...] In een donker voorkamertje liggen een paar
kerels, met het lampje tusschen beiden, verzonken in de heerlijkheid van een opiumroes. Een derde zit er bij en
toont ons dadelijk, smakelijk lachend, de kleine voorbereidende folterwerktuigen, waarvan hij naar hartelust
gebruik mag maken, als een dubbelen bamboestok en een eveneens dubbelen leeren lap om de wangen mee te
slaan. [...] Er zijn op ‘t oogenblik weinig gevangen; maar toch zitten zij in enkele muffe, duistere hokken
opeengedrongen als koeien voor een slachthuis. De meesten hebben ijzer om de voeten; sommigen bovendien
nog breede houten kragen om de halzen; anderen zijn samengeklonken in onmogelijke houdingen en wanneer
iemand de getraliede deur of een getralied luchtgat nadert, dringen zij jankend als uitgehonderde beesten naar
voren en wringen zij de magere, vuile armen bedelend door de bouten heen. Er zijn ook jammerende leprozen en
giegelende vrouwen en onder de laatsten, welke vrij rondloopen, is de vroolijkste een ter dood veroordeelde, die
haar man heeft vermoord en nu op de doorreis van een hoogen mandarijn wacht om tot vermaak van dien gast te
worden gevierendeeld.