2-979-661 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Chinese Criminal led to Execution - from a drawing by a Chinese artist, 1857. 'The penal code of China...is marked by great barbarity. The punishments are in general most cruel, and ill proportioned to the crimes for which they are inflicted: for the slightest offence a mandarin is degraded, banished, and even deprived of all property. [The iIllustration is]...selected from a series of beautifully-executed drawings in colours, upon rice- paper, in a small folio volume, which has been obtained in Canton by an officer of the Hon. East India Company's Service...[It shows] a criminal being led by a chain to execution. A flat lath, or strip of wood, which is attached to his neck in such a manner as to project above his head, bears, in Chinese characters, a description of his crime; the nature of which, however, it is difficult to guess, on account of the number of capital offences in the Chinese code'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.