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to have the chest opened in his presence ; when , in the place of his ingots of gold ' Le found nothing but flints and pieces of stone wrapped carefully up in silky paper * The coolies were audacious thieves , who had dexterously contrived the substitution * The Viceroy , in a transport of rage , set all the police on the alert , but without avail . The thieves had doubtless taken refuge in the country of the rebels , where both their persons and their booty were in safety , ' * Here is one for the advocates of capital punishment : — A CHINESE EXECUTION . « 'On the 1 st of May , ' he writes , 'I attended an execution with three of my friends . The street in which these frightful scenes occur , is situated , as you are aware , without the walled city of Gantpn , towards that part of the suburbs which
lies to the south along the river . This narrow , dirty street , which is about 100 metres long and 15 wide , is called b y the Europeans , the ' Potter's Field / .. All the houses on each side are in fact inhabited by workmen who make common services of porcelain , and those portable furnaces which you have often seen in the poorest houses , and in the floating residences on the river . For fear that a Chinese scholar like you may dispute names with me , I must tell you at once that this dismal place is called by the natives , Tsien-Tze-Ma-Teou , or , the ' Quay of the Thousand Characters , ' in allusion to the numerous signs which are seen there from the river . " 'We arrived there at ten o ' clock in the morning , and took our station in front of a shop belonging to a mender of old stockings . This was an excellent position to take a survey of the whole ceremony , and we remained there quietly till noon ; at which time some soldiers and officers attached to the service of the mandarins
arrived , to clear the street and thrust back the curious . As in Europe , the persons who ciime to see the spectacle were the vilest dregs of the populace , —dirty , ragged people , with sinister countenances , who wandered about this ensanguined soil ; where most likely they had already seen the execution of a number of their companions , and perhaps of their accomplices " " ' In a short time the roll of the tam-tam announced to us the arrival of the whole procession . Mandarins of every degree , with the red , white , blue , or yellow ball , riding on horseback , or carried in palanquins , and followed by an escort of musicians , sbirri , and standard-bearers , alighted at a short distance from the place of execution . Contrary to their ceremonious habits , they arranged " themselves in the dismal enclosure .
" ' Then arrived the criminals . They were fifty-three in number , each shut up in a basket , with his hands tied behind his back , his legs chained , and a board inscribed with his sentence hanging from his neck . You have often met in the ChinesB streets a pair of coolies carrying a pig stretched out at its full length in a bamboo case . Well , just imagine a human being put in the place of the unclean animal , and you can form an idea of the fifty-three unfortunate creatures in their cages . When the cages were set down , they were opened and emptied , just as when a pig is turned out at a butcher ' s shop . I examined these unfortunate wretches with attention : they were worn out with hunger , and looked more like skeletons than living beings . It was evident that they had suffered the most dreadful privations . They were clothed in loathsome tattera , wore long hair , and the dishevelled tail attached to the crown of the head , had been reduced to a third of its usual length . They had evidently belonged to the insurgent bands , who had adopted the fashion of the Mings , and allowed all their hair to grow .
Many of these unfortunate persons were very young : some were not sixteen years of age ; while others had gray hair . Scarcely were they thrown on the ground pell-mell , when they were compelled to kneel ; but the greater part of them were so debilitated from suffering , that they could not keep in this position , and rolled in the mud . An executioner ' s assistant then picked them up , and arranged them all in a row ; while three executioners placed themselves behind them and waited the fatal moment . You , doubtless , recollect those horrible figures whom we have often seem together in the cortege of the criminal judge of Canton those figures dressed in a red blouse , and wearing a copper crown , adorned above the ears with two long pheasant ' s feathers . Well ! these were the executioners who now waited the signal with a rude and heavy cutlass in their hands . "These enormous weapons are about two feet long , and the back of the blade is two inches thick : altogether it is a cumbrous instrument , shaped like a Chinese razor , with a rude handle of wood .
"' A mandarin who closed the cortege then * entered the enclosure . He was adorned with tho white ball , and held in his hand a board , inscribed with the order lor execution . Aa soon as this man appeared the frightful work began . The executioner ' s "ssistanta , each clothed in a long black robe , and wearing a sort of head-dress of iron wickor-work , seized the criminals behind , and passing their arms under the shoulders of thoir victims , gave them a swinging movement , which made liein stretch out their necks . Tho executioner , who wjis now in front , holding his a word in both hands , threw all his strength into the weapon , and divided the cervical vertebra } with incredible rapidity , severing tho bead from the body at a single low . Tho executioner never had to strike twice ; for oven if the flesh was not completel y cut through , the weight was sufficient to tear it , and tho head rolled on 10 ground . An assistant then levelled the victim with a kick , for tho corpse would otherwise havo remained in a kneeling position . After three or four decapitations , _ io executioner changed his weapon ; the edgo of tho blade scouting completely urned . Tho execution of theso fifty-three wretches only lasted nonio minutes .
' When tho last head had fallen , tho mandarins retired front tho scene as silent as tliay had come . Seeing 1 tho highest provincial officers present at the execution ! . J ' w » fortunuto . mcn , ' l was struck with tho reflection that in all countries—Jiombie to Hay—the political scaffold lias been elevated instead of degraded . After io departure of tho mandarins , tho executioner picked up all tho heads , and threw ^ " mi into a cheat brought for tho purpo . se . At tho hjuuo thno tho assistants took ° chains oft" tho victims an they lay in a pool of Wood . Tho heads wore carried nw but tho bodies were left on tho pluco of execution . A lamentable scene then commenced . A troop of women with dishevelled * ' — - ' -v "v / vmv ; Kaauj * v . iMiuui . ui . UUt iV 1 > & \ H > W V ) l WOIlll . ll > rlbu «* ir * IIV V vji »« jH ¦ '
l »«>» approached tho fatal spot , shrieking aloud , in wild disorder . Thcso unhappy nnnpi Wcro endeavouring to distinguish their fathers , their husbands , and their ill r " ' Mnou . tho lu ! ll ( llloHS « o » 'Pk « h . It was a frightful kcoiio to see them hurrying H 1 > 0 U li' l M ) n ( . Icri » f ?» » nd constantly mistaken amidst these headless reumiiiH . This tiaroU continued all day , accompanied by a mournful noise ; funeral dirges being » KUul with cries and sobs . Tho women never ceased repeating that kind of ^_ am- common to all funeral eoremonioH , and which was composed , it is said , in tho i'lTt n Min S ' lt iH a HOrfc of rhythmical plaint , in which the wuno words . iHtantly recur . 'Oh , inwory ! Oh , despair ! My happiness is gone for over ! ui" kindness will no longer notion the bitterness ' of life ! Alono and bereaved of '» A cuu onl y woon and dio ovor your uhIiqm ! ' und ho on ' "
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September 10 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 883
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UNNOTICED EREORS OF THE " VESTIGES . " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation . Tenth Edition . Churchill [ FOURTH ARTICLE . ] The Vestiges has been attacked frequently . enough jbofcii its facts and its conclusions have roused polemic ardour . Where these attacks have had some reason , the author has admitted them , and either modified or defended his positions . We ¦ are about to break new ground , and to point out what appear to us errors far more serious than a mis-stated fact , or a misapplied illustration . We hope to do so with the courtesy of sincere respect ; with the vigour of admiring antagonism , which will not let us mince phrases .
The primary error—irpcorov ifsevdos—of the Hypothesis set forth in the Vestiges , as our readers will have perceived from previous remarks , is the quiet assumption of Nature ' s growth and development being a preordained " Plan . " This is an assumption . It is a metaphysical assumption , and as such unwarrantable in a work which professes to explain all things by " Natural Law . " It is an assumption contradicted at every ^ step , both by metaphysics and by fact . It is an assumption , for what can the author / enow of Providence and " pre-ordained designs" which can induce him to say , for example , that the
" Acarus Crossii was a type of being ordained front the beginning , and destined to be realized under certain physical conditions ? " Unless he have some revelation to assure him , he can have no authority for such a statement . All that observed facts and deduced inferences , permit us to say , ( admitting , which we do not , the experiment of Mr . Crosse to be decisive , ) is that the Acarus is formed under certain conditions—but not aword of pre-ordained type ! The same tacit assumption of a knowledge of the " ways of Providence" is noticeable in this sentence : —•
" Amongst the arrangements of Providence is one for tJie production of original , inventive , and aspiring minds , which , when circumstances are not decidedly unfavourable , strike out new ideas for the benefit of their fellow-creatures , or put upon them a lasting impress of their own superior sentiments . " The theologian may say so with perfect consistency , for he claims to knotv the ways of Providence ( in spite of their declared inscrutability ) , but the philosopher who takes his stand on Science and Natural Law must not be allowed such language . _ _ .
Having assumed that this universe does not live its own life , but lives a life " planned" for it—every change being " pre-ordained , " every movement " forethought "—the author passes on to the assumption that this Plan is realized . in a long , slow process of " gestation ; " that just as the microscopic cell which is subsequently to be developed into an animal , passes through var ious successive forms , all determined by Natural Law , so does this universe advance through the stages of its gestation , the final stage being " contained" in the primal stage , pre-existent , preordained , requiring only time for development .
" The proposition determined on after much consideration is , that the several ueries of animated beings , from the simplest and oldest up to the highest and most recent , are , under the providence of God , the results , first , of an impulse which has been imparted to the forms of life , advancing them , in definite times , hy generation , through grades of organization terminating in the highest dicotyledons and vertebrata , these grades being few in number , and generally marked by intervals of organic character which we find to be a practical difficulty in ascertaining
affinities ; second , of another impulse connected with the vital forces , tending m the course of generations , to modify organic structures in accordance with external circumstances , as food , tho nature of the habitat and the meteoric agencies , these being the * adaptations' of the natural theologian . . We may contemplate these p henomena as ordained to taTceplace in every situation , and at every timo , whero and when tho requisite materials and conditions arc presented—in other orbs as well as in this—in any geographical area of this globo which may at any time arise—observing only the variations due to difference of materials and of conditions . "
Elsewhere : — " Two principles arc thus scon at work in the production of the organic tenants of the earth—first , a geutativc development pressing on through the grades of organization , and bringing- out particular organs necessary for new fields of existence ; secondly , a variativo power connected with the will and dispositions in animals , re-actod upon by external conditions , and working to minor effects , though tlteso may sometimes bo hardly distinguishable front the other . Everywhere along tho central scale of organization , the land has boon , as it were , a temptation or provocation to now and superior forms adapted for inhabiting it . Wo might almost regard the progression as tho result of an aspiration towards new and sujierior fields of existence , as from tho deep sea to tho shallow or river enibouchuro , from tho shore to tho bank , from that again to the hig her ground in the interior . "
Now , this appears to us as metaphysical an assumption as any of those final causes of which metaphysicians are so prodigal . It is moreover singularly unfortunate in uu author who admits the modern embryological doctrine of Epigonosia , and rejects the old doctrine of Evolution . lt is also singularly inappropriate to the task of explaining phenomena , and leads him into strange errors when he attempts that task ; indeed , wo find it difllculfc to convey an idea of tho impression made on us by oijo sentence in his book , —that , namely , whero he speaks of " rudimentary organs . being harmless ' peculiarities of development and interesting evidences of tho manner in which the Divine Author has been pleased to work . " Such a sentence-from one who had studied embryology would be startling , but from ono who holds the development hypothesis it is inconceivable .
Connected with this metaphysical aberration — forming , indeed , an integral part of the author ' s hypothesis—is another on Time , so frequently adduced as a positive element in development . Without having recourse to any Kantian negation of Timo as an objective existence , it will be easy to show that Time being an universal condition , cannot becomo special —• in plainer language , that Timo can have nothing whatever to do iu this hypothesis . When wo say it requires time for falling water to wear awny a stone , wo do not make Time an element in the olTeet of friction
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 10, 1853, page 883, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2003/page/19/
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