The grain of thekaoliang, one of the most important crops of North China. It grows from ten to fifteen feet high and makes the finest of hiding-places for bandits
The grain of thekaoliang, one of the most important crops of North China. It grows from ten to fifteen feet high and makes the finest of hiding-places for bandits
The grain of thekaoliang, one of the most important crops of North China. It grows from ten to fifteen feet high and makes the finest of hiding-places for bandits
A daily sight in Vladivostok,—a group of youths suspected of opinions contrary to those of the Government, rounded up and trotted off to prison
A daily sight in Vladivostok,—a group of youths suspected of opinions contrary to those of the Government, rounded up and trotted off to prison
A daily sight in Vladivostok,—a group of youths suspected of opinions contrary to those of the Government, rounded up and trotted off to prison
A refugee Russian priest, of whom there were many in Harbin
A refugee Russian priest, of whom there were many in Harbin
A refugee Russian priest, of whom there were many in Harbin
Types of this kind swarm along the Chinese Eastern Railway of Manchuria, many of them volunteers in the Chinese army or railway police
Types of this kind swarm along the Chinese Eastern Railway of Manchuria, many of them volunteers in the Chinese army or railway police
Types of this kind swarm along the Chinese Eastern Railway of Manchuria, many of them volunteers in the Chinese army or railway police
Many examples of Chinese oppression of the Russians were common knowledge in Harbin, some of them more serious than others. A young Russian member of the Y. M. C. A. who was putting the shot in a park of the residence town was arrested by the Chinese on the charge of having a bomb in his possession. He spent some hours in jail, finally to be released on bail, the police confiscating what the judge agreed with them was an explosive agent of destruction. The association secretary had to threaten to refer the matter to the American consul before the “bomb” was returned, and when I left Harbin the charge against the “bomb-thrower” had not been dismissed. Then there was the sad case of another member aspiring to athletic prowess, who, in throwing the javelin, hit a dog, though that was complicated by the fact that the injured animal was of Japanese nationality, which made the affair much more serious. Chang and his retainers may have a justifiable scorn for those of us whose governments so habitually turn the other cheek of late in cases of Chinese aggression, but there are several thousand good reasons, all splendidly armed and equipped and right on the spot, why he should respect Japan’s wishes, even if his former lieutenancy and certain allegations of secret allegiances still frequently heard have no weight with him.
These instances, I admit, are not such as nations should go to war over, but they are just as good examples as are many far more serious ones, which any foreign resident of Harbin can cite, of how misunderstandings alone, if there were the very best will and desire to be just, would make it impossible for foreigners to get justice in China once their extraterritorial privileges were taken away from them. Nor was it a particularly agreeable sight to see a line of Russian men and women waiting for hours, if not for days, the good pleasure of haughty Chinese officials and their gutter-snipe-like underlings in order to get passports to go to another town, or out of the country. The court-room I visited in Harbin was an ordinary brick and plaster building, but chasers of evil spirits climbed its eaves, and dragons sat on the roof, their antennæ waving in the wind. Many Russians were gathered, including a huge lawyer in robes who suggestedGulliverin fear of his life when he bowed and smirked before the diminutive almond-eyed officials. In theory court opened at ten, but there had been fireworks in the Chinese town the night before and his honor was still being patiently awaited at noon. Out in front of the court was a string of bill-boards on which cases were posted in tissue-paper sheets covered with Chinese characters, reminding one that an interpreter to explain what the police had against one would be indispensable under lost extraterritoriality.
The judge did come at last, a boyish-looking fellow who sat in splendid, not to say haughty, isolation in his high chair, singsonging something now and then in a half-audible falsetto, and still more often hawking and spitting on the floor, though there were signs all over the court-room forbidding it. On the desk before him was one tissue-paperbordereau, as the French, who use similar loosely bound collections of papers, would call it; but there were no signs of law-books, and the judge seemed to get his precedents, and his opinions, too, one suspected,from the not too immaculate clerks and hangers-on who frequently came up to whisper in his ear. Meanwhile a gray-bearded Russian was standing respectfully before him at the rail, droning on and on in his own tongue some sort of complaint, testimony, or defense. The case was not a very serious one, it seemed, there being a mere matter of two or three hundred dollars “Mex” involved; but without going any farther into details, let me put it briefly that, though there was in evidence all the machinery of justice which a visiting commission would wish to see, I should very much have regretted the necessity of expecting justice from this soggy-eyed Celestial youth, bending his ear to this and that whisper from his unkempt, shifty-looking attendants.
I visited also the big prison down in Pristan, built by the Russians but now taken over by the Chinese. There were two hundred and seventy-seven Russian prisoners and one German in it, a dozen of them women, among whom was a Jewish member of that sex who had lived for years in “Noo Yoik,” and spoke her fluent English accordingly. The same rules governed the prison as under the Russians, but orders from higher up now came from Chinese, and inmates put their hope, in cases where they had any left, in Chinese courts and officials. Some of the guards were still Russian, but the majority were not, and the sight of white men, clanking with enormous chains, chased about the yard while they cleaned out toilets and did similar menial tasks, by Chinese jailers who openly enjoyed their discomfiture, would not have added to the joy of white nations. Nearly all the prisoners, however, were in groups of six to a dozen in large cells that could be dimly seen through a small slit in each door. Living conditions were those of the old type of Russian prisons, with immense locks, and very thick walls that made the July heat furnace-like; the food was mainlykaoliangand other cheap, coarse grains; there were no shops, or regular work of any kind, and only half an hour’s exercise a day in the open air was allowed, even “in principle.” There were, of course, desperate criminals among the rather pasty-faced but generally big brawny men who peered out the door-slits with expressions uncannily like caged lions and tigers, and from these China must protect herself and those who dwell within her borders. But my American missionary companion, who had lived for some time in Harbin and spoke Russian, knew personally of several men for whose innocence the whole Caucasian community could vouch, who were there merely out of Chinese spite and whose trials had been, or would be, if they ever took place, worse than travesties on justice. The worst hardship of all, accordingto the misguided lady from “Noo Yoik,” was that no one had the least inkling, nor any possible way of finding out, when the Chinese might deign to bring a prisoner to court and air the charges against him.
Terms up to forty years were inflicted, but “long-timers” had the privilege, at least in theory, of being transferred to the “model prison” in Peking. Thus far no Russians had been executed, “because of the impression this might make among foreign nations,” according to an official Chinese statement. Of course once those nations give up their extraterritorial rights it will not so much matter what impression is made. Not long after our visit, however, when a thin and effeminate-looking little Russian charged with half a dozen murders in the pursuance of his calling as highway robber, and with whom I talked “high-brow stuff” in his tiny private cell, walked calmly out of the court-room and killed two or three of the policemen who pursued him, the announcement was made that in his case at least, if he were ever retaken, this policy would be rescinded. There is little doubt that this particular “bad man” should be done away with; but when Chinese soldiers get to shooting white men as one of their regular duties, what little prestige our race retains in China will soon evaporate. For what those many untraveled Westerners who feel that China should have complete sovereignty within her borders do not realize is the primitive mentality of the Chinese masses, which includes the soldiers, in such matters as the natural fights of others and the assumption of a low estate in those who are not outwardly honored and protected.
Though it is trespassing on the future to mention it here, I visited, months later, that “model prison” of Peking. It is just that, a well built, splendidly arranged penitentiary on the most modern, wheel-shaped lines, out in the southwest corner of the Chinese city. The new section recently built for foreigners—which had room for four times as many inmates as had so far been collected—was quite all it should be, with hot and cold baths, reasonable provisions for heating in winter, a kitchen of its own where foreign food was prepared. The workshops of the entire institution were large, airy, and light; there was a Russian as well as a Chinese chapel in which Taoist, Confucianist, Mohammedan, Christian, even Y. M. C. A. speakers appeared on Sundays; the régime of the place was considerate and enlightened; as a prison, in fact, it should make such a place as Sing Sing faint with shame. I saw other “model prisons” in China, notably that in the capital of Shansi, which has never had a representative from the outside world except a Turkwho was caught peddling opium pills. But these few praiseworthy institutions in the more enlightened centers, and toward which the eyes of an investigating commission would, of course, be carefully directed, are as nothing compared to the unspeakable holes all over China into which prisoners are thrown, and where foreigners also would have the privilege of moldering away while provincial authorities slept, if extraterritoriality were abolished.
There is no Chinese code of laws; the fate of most prisoners depends on the often poor judgment, the mood of the moment, the devious political machinations, of the judge himself, not to mention wide-spread bribery and Oriental intricacies of which even old residents have only an inkling. Two separate codes, for foreigners and Chinese, would certainly have to be introduced before extraterritoriality could be surrendered. You cannot justly shoot or lop off the head of a Westerner for stealing a suit of clothes or a sack of grain, however necessary such drastic measures may be among a people desperate with habitual semi-starvation and so inured to hardships that ordinary punishments mean nothing, any more than you can justly arrest a foreign merchant because his overcoat has been stolen, and keep him in jail for weeks as a witness. In Chinese jurisprudence torture is a recognized procedure, and false confessions forced thereby are considered legal proof of guilt. Every prisoner is presumed to be guilty, and must prove his innocence, rather than be convicted by the prosecution, no strange point of view to Latin races, but a topsyturvy one to Anglo-Saxons. Not the least disagreeable of Chinese practices is the “doctrine of responsibility,” which means that in any group, be it village, family, crew, or, if the present status were changed, assemblage of foreigners, some one must be punished for the misdeeds of any individual member of it, so that a perfectly innocent head may be lopped off to save the trouble of hunting out the real criminal. Even though the Chinese were to do their best to treat foreign prisoners justly, the very differences in point of view, in customs, in diet even, would make it impossible. The East and the West are so unlike that an American could die of Chinese food and living conditions while his jailers were priding themselves, in their ignorance of other lands, on giving him the best the world affords. Of course Japan is an example of the abolishing of extraterritoriality; but even there the foreigner by no means gets Western justice, and for all the virtues and likable qualities of the Celestial and the often disagreeable traits of the Nipponese, government in Japan is ideal compared to the corrupt, chaotic travesty on it which rules China.