British acquisition of Burmah—Quarrels with the king in 1824—His reprisals—British subjects seized and sent to prison—Mr. Henry Gouger’s narrative—The “Death Prison”—Gigantic stocks—Filthiness of prison—Tortures inflicted—Barbarous trials—Horrible life—Rats and vermin—Smallpox—Tobacco a valuable disinfectant—Another “Black Hole”—Chained to a leper—Released by the advance of British troops—Penal code of Burmah—Ordeals and punishments—Treading to death by elephants—Dacoity the last form of resistance to British rule—Prison life—The Burmese gaol-bird—An outbreak.
The acquisition and annexation of Burmah by Great Britain, first the lower province with three-fourths of the seaboard, and then the entire kingdom, were accomplished between 1824 and 1886, in a little more than half a century, that is to say. Until this took place the country was generally in a state of anarchy, the king was a bloodthirsty despot, and the state council was at his bidding no better than a band of Dacoits who plundered the people and murdered them wholesale. The ruling powers were always anxious to pick a quarrel with their powerful British neighbours, and were so unceasingly aggressive that they brought on a war in 1824, which ended in the capture of Rangoon and the occupation of Pegu and Martaban with the cession of the coast province of Aracan.
The outbreak of hostilities led to cruel retaliation by the king of Burmah upon all Europeans who resided in the country, whether as missionaries or merchants engaged in trade. One of them, an Englishman, Mr. Henry Gouger, was arrested as a spy and arraigned before a court of justice with very little hope of escaping with his life. He was fortunately spared after suffering untold indignities and many positive tortures. Eventually he published his experiences, which remain to this day as a graphic record of the Burmese prisons as they then existed. He was first committed to the safe keeping of the king’s body guard, and confined with his feet in the stocks; then he was transferred to the “death prison,” having been barbarously robbed and deprived of his clothing. He was not entirely stripped, but was led away with his arms tied behind his back, bare-headed and bare-footed to the Let-ma-yoon, the “antechamber of the tomb.”
Let me proceed now in the narrator’s own words:—
“There are four common prisons in Ava, but one of these only was appropriated to criminals likely to suffer death. It derived its remarkably well-selected name, Let-ma-yoon, literally interpreted, ‘Hand, shrink not,’ from the revolting scenes of cruelty practised within its walls. This was the prison to which I was driven. My heart sank within me as I entered the gate of the prison yard which, as it closed behind me, seemed to shut me out forever from all the interests and sympathies of the world beyond it. I was now delivered over to the wretches, seven or eight in number, who guarded this gaol. They were all condemned malefactors, whose lives had been spared on the condition of their becoming executioners; the more hideous the crime for which he had to suffer, the more hardened the criminal, the fitter instrument he was presumed to be for the profession he was henceforth doomed to follow. To render escape without detection impossible, the shape of a ring was indelibly tattooed on each cheek, which gave rise to the name they were commonly known by, pahquet, or ‘ring-cheeked,’ a term detested by themselves as one of reproach and one we never dared to apply in addressing them. The nature of his qualification for the employment was written in a similar manner across the breast. The chief of the gang was a lean, wiry, hard-featured old man whom we taught ourselves to address under the appellation aphe, ‘father,’ as did all his subordinates. Another bearing an appropriate motto had murdered his brother and had hidden his body piecemeal under his house. A third was branded thoo-kho, ‘thief.’ This troop of wretches were held in such detestation that the law prohibited their entering any person’s house except in execution of their office. It happened, soon after I entered, that the exigencies of this brotherhood were great from an increase of business, and no brave malefactor (inhumanity was always styled bravery here) being ready to strengthen the force, a young man convicted of a petty offence was selected to fill the vacancy. I beheld this poor youth doomed to the most debasing ignominy for the rest of his life by these fatal rings, his piteous cries at the degradation he was undergoing being drowned by the jeers and ridicule of the confederates. They soon made him as much a child of the devil as themselves.
“The ‘father’ of this interesting family received me at the gate with a smile of welcome like the grin of a tiger, and with the most disgusting imprecations hurried me to a huge block of granite embedded in the centre of the yard. I was made to sit down and place my ankles on the block of stone while three pairs of fetters were struck on with a maul, a false blow of which would have maimed me forever. But they were too expert for this, and it was not a time to care for minor dangers. Thus shackled, I was told, as if in derision, to walk to the entrance of the prison-house not many yards distant; but as the shortness of the chains barely permitted me to advance the heel of one foot to the toe of the other, it was only by shuffling a few inches at a time that the task was accomplished. Practice, however, soon made me more expert.
“It is not easy to give a correct idea of the prison which was destined to be my dwelling place for the first year of my captivity. Although it was between four and five o’clock on a bright sunny afternoon, the rays of light only penetrated through the chinks and cracks of the walls sufficiently to disclose the utter wretchedness of all within. Some time elapsed before I could clearly distinguish the objects by which I was surrounded. As my eyes gradually adapted themselves to the dim light, I ascertained it to be a room about forty feet long by thirty feet wide, the floor and sides made of strong teak-wood planks, the former being raised two feet from the earth on posts, which, according to the usual style of Burmese architecture, ran through the body of the building, and supported the tiled roof as well as the rafters for the floor and the planking of the walls. The height of the walls from the floor was five or six feet, but the roof being a sloping one, the centre might be double that height. It had no window or aperture to admit light or air except a closely woven bamboo wicket used as a door, and this was always kept closed. Fortunately, the builders had not expended much labour on the walls, the planks of which here and there were not very closely united, affording through the chinks the only ventilation the apartment possessed, if we except a hole near the roof where, either by accident or design, nearly a foot in length of decayed plank had been torn off. This formed a safety-valve for the escape of foul air to a certain extent; and, but for this fortuitous circumstance, it is difficult to see how life could have been long sustained.
“The only articles of furniture the place contained were these:—First and most prominent, was a gigantic row of stocks similar in its construction to that formerly used in England, dilapidated specimens of which may still be seen in some of the market places of our country towns. It was capable of accommodating more than a dozen occupants. Several smaller varieties of the same species lay around, each holding by the leg a pair of hapless victims consigned to its custody. These stocks were heavy logs of timber bored with holes to admit the feet and fitted with wooden pins to hold them fast. In the centre of the apartment was placed a tripod holding a large earthen cup filled with earth oil to be used as a lamp during the night watches; and lastly, a simple but suspicious looking piece of machinery, whose painful uses it was my fate to test before many hours had elapsed. It was merely a long bamboo suspended from the roof by a rope at each end and worked by blocks or pulleys to raise or depress it at pleasure.
“The prison had never been washed, nor even swept, since it was built. So I was told, and I have no doubt it was true, for, besides the ocular proof from its present condition, it is certain no attempt was made to cleanse it during my subsequent tenancy of eleven months. This gave a kind of fixedness or permanency to the fetid odours, until the very floors and walls were saturated with them. Putrid remains of castaway animal and vegetable stuff which needed no broom to make it ‘move on’—the stale fumes from thousands of tobacco pipes—the scattered ejections of the pulp and liquid from their everlasting betel, and other nameless abominations still more disgusting, which strewed the floor—and if to this be added the exudation from the bodies of a crowd of never-washed convicts, encouraged by the thermometer at 100 degrees, in a den almost without ventilation—is it possible to say what it smelled like? As might have been expected from such a state of things, the place was teeming with creeping vermin to an extent that very soon reconciled me to the plunder of the greater portion of my dress.
“When night came on, the ‘father’ of the establishment, entering, stalked towards our corner. The meaning of the bamboo now became apparent. It was passed between the legs of each individual and when it had threaded our number, seven in all, a man at each end hoisted it up by the blocks to a height which allowed our shoulders to rest on the ground while our feet depended from the iron rings of the fetters. The adjustment of the height was left to the judgment of our kind-hearted parent, who stood by to see that it was not high enough to endanger life nor low enough to exempt from pain. Having settled this point to his satisfaction, the venerable chief proceeded with a staff to count the number of the captives, bestowing a smart rap on the head to those he disliked, whom he made over to the savage with a significant hint of what he might expect if the agreed tally were not forthcoming when the wicket opened the next morning. He then took his leave, kindly wishing us a good night’s rest, for the old wretch could be facetious; the young savage trimmed his lamp, lighted his pipe, did the same act of courtesy to all who wished to smoke, and the anxious community, one by one, sought a short oblivion to their griefs in sleep.
“In vain, however, did our little party court that blessing; passing by the torment of thought, the sufferings of the body alone were enough to prevent it. I had youth on my side, and my slender frame enabled me to bear the suspension better than my fellow sufferers. The tobacco smoke was a mercy, for it robbed the infliction of half its torment. A year afterward, when we had to undergo a punishment somewhat similar, though in a purer atmosphere, we found the sting of the mosquitos, on the soles of our undefended feet, ‘without the power to scare away’ these venomous little insects, was intolerable; whereas in this well-smoked apartment a mosquito could not live. We were not aware at the time what a happy exemption this was. What a night was that on which we now entered! Death, in its most appalling form, perhaps attended with the agony of unknown tortures, was thought by all to be our certain lot. Kewet-nee, who occupied the next place on the bamboo, excited a horrible interest by the relation of a variety of exquisite tortures which he had known to be perpetrated under that roof.
“The rays of the morning sun now began to struggle through the chinks of the prison walls and told us that day dawned, bringing life and happiness to the world outside, but only the consciousness of misery to all within. The prisoners being counted and found to tally correctly with the reckoning of overnight, symptoms of the routine of the day began to attract attention. Our considerate parent made his appearance and with his customary grin lowered down the bamboo to within a foot of the floor, to the great relief of our benumbed limbs in which the blood slowly began again to circulate. At eight o’clock the inmates were driven out in gangs of ten or twelve at a time, to take the air for five minutes, when they were huddled in again, to make way for others; but no entreaty could secure a repetition of the same favour that day, though a bribe, which few could promise, might effect it. Fresh air, the cheapest of all the gifts of Providence, was a close monopoly in the hands of the ‘sons of the prison,’ who sold it at the highest price, and with a niggard hand.
“After breakfast the business of trying the prisoners began, and each was brought in turn before the myo-serai, or assistant to the governor. The first was a young man accused of being concerned in the robbery of the house of a person of rank. Whether the accusation was well founded or not I had no means of judging except by the result; but certainly the man had not the appearance of a robber. As a matter of course, he denied the crime; but denial was assumed to be obstinacy, and the usual mode of overcoming obstinacy was by some manner of torture. By order of the myo-serai, therefore, he was made to sit upon a low stool, his legs were bound together by a cord above the knees and two poles inserted between them by the executioners, one of whom took the command of each pole, the ground forming the fulcrum. With these the legs were forced upwards and downwards and asunder, and underwent a peculiar kind of grinding, inflicting more or less pain as the judge gave direction. Every moment I expected to hear the thighbone snap. The poor fellow sustained this torture with loud cries but still with firmness until the agony became so intense that he fainted. ‘The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’ To restore animation they resorted to cold water and shampooing. Thus revived, he was again thrust back into his den with menaces of fresh torture on the morrow, as no confession had yet been wrung from him. I may as well finish the revolting story at once.
“True to his word, the myo-serai returned the next day to renew his diabolical practices. This time the culprit was tied by the wrists behind his back, the rope which bound them being drawn by a pulley just high enough to allow his toes to touch the ground, and in this manner he was left until he should become more reasonable. At length, under the pressure of agonising pain, just in time to save the dislocation of the shoulder, the criminal made his confession and criminated two respectable persons as accomplices. From what followed I presume this was all that was wanted. The man of justice had now two men in his toils who were able to pay. The unfortunate man, who, when relieved from the pain of the torture, acknowledged he had accused innocent people, was returned to gaol fearfully mangled and maimed; but instead of meeting a felon’s fate, when time had been given to fleece the two victims, he was released.
“Within the walls nothing worthy of notice occurred until the hour of three in the afternoon. As this hour approached, we noticed that the talking and jesting of the community gradually died away. All seemed to be under the influence of some powerful restraint, until that fatal hour was announced by the deep tones of a powerful gong suspended in the palace yard, and a deathlike silence prevailed. If a word was spoken it was in a whisper. It seemed as though even breathing were suspended under the control of a panic terror, too deep for expression, which pervaded every bosom. We did not long remain in ignorance of the cause. If any of the prisoners were to suffer death that day, the hour of three was that at which they were taken out for execution. The manner of it was the acme of cold-blooded cruelty. The hour was scarcely told by the gong when the wicket opened, and the hideous figure of a spotted man appeared, who, without uttering a word, walked straight to his victim now for the first time probably made acquainted with his doom. As many of these unfortunate people knew no more than ourselves the fate that awaited them, this mystery was terrible and agonising; each one fearing, up to the last moment, that the stride of the Spot might be directed his way. When the culprit disappeared with his conductor and the prison door closed behind them, those who remained began again to breathe more freely; for another day, at least, their lives were safe.
“It is not my intention to make this narrative a chronicle of all the diabolical cruelties in this den of abominations, but the first specimen which greeted our eyes on the morrow may serve as a fair sample of the practices which it was our fate to behold almost daily. The routine was generally this:—The magistrate takes his seat in the front of the shed in which we occupy the background, as though the spot had been selected for our convenience, as spectators to behold an amusing exhibition. A criminal is now summoned from the interior. He hobbles out and squats down in terror before the judge; the crime of which he is accused is stated to him. He denies it; he is urged by various motives to confess his guilt; perhaps he knows that confession is only another word for execution; therefore he still denies. The magistrate assumes an air of indignation at his obstinacy and now begins the work of his tormentor, the man with the ringed cheek who has hitherto stood by waiting the word of command. He has many means at his disposal, but the one selected for the present instance was a short iron maul. It would simply excite disgust were I to enter into detail. Suffice it to say that after writhing and rolling on the ground and screaming with agony for nearly half an hour, the unfortunate wretch was assisted to his den, a mass of wounds and bruises pitiable to behold, leaving his judge not a whit the wiser.
“By degrees we settled down into the habits of the prison and were becoming familiar with such scenes as I have recounted. We began also to speculate on the length of time nature could hold out, if we were left to test it. How long could we live in such a plight without the use of water or other means of cleanliness? Would habit reconcile us to it as it apparently had done many of our fellow prisoners? Some of them had lived there for years. We gradually became acquainted with them and with their crimes, real or imputed. There were many cases in the calendar that were almost incredible and showed that accident, caprice, superstition and even carelessness occasioned their confinement. One grimy, half-starved old man had been kept there three years and neither knew why he was there nor who sent him. The crime of another must have been that of a madman, or more probably it was a false accusation, preferred to gratify private revenge. He was said to have made an image of the king and to have walked over it. The mere imputation of practising necromancy against the sacred person of the king was a fatal charge. The poor fellow was taken from among us at the hour of midnight and despatched by breaking his spine. Why this singular method of slaughter was resorted to, as well as the manner of carrying it into execution, was as mysterious as the crime itself; they were not at all particular as to the mode of depriving their victims of life, but seemed to be guided altogether by caprice.
“The plan of the prison yard shows that there were a number of small cells used by the ringed brotherhood, and the pleading of our amiable protectress secured for us the liberty to occupy them. It is true they were very small, the one I inhabited being about five feet wide with just enough length to lie down in; it was so low that I could not stand upright except in the middle where the roof was highest; but it was Elysium when compared with the suffocating choke of the inner prison. Nor could it be called altogether solitary confinement, for one of our gaolers had a pretty daughter about sixteen years old, who took a wonderful fancy to me and was a frequent visitor in my cell. She supplied me, too, with an unspeakable luxury, water for ablution. Oh, who can appreciate the gift but those who have been long deprived of it? A scrap of rag, moistened with some of the water given us to drink, only served to smear the grime like a plaster over our bodies. Now, once again I could call myself comparatively clean. My cell had other advantages. My eyes escaped many scenes of revolting cruelty; my ears, many foul anathemas and gross abuse; my lungs and olfactories, all sorts of abominations. The chief loss was the society of my friends. The rats, too, were numerous and troublesome at first; but these, though a disgusting nuisance, I managed to turn to account by the fancy of the pahquets for their flesh. The Burmese hold rats in about the same estimation as we do hares, and sell them commonly in their markets for about their own weight in lead. My cell, therefore, might be regarded as a well-stocked preserve for game. The burrows ran in all directions, and hardly a day passed without my bagging a few heads of this novel kind of game and handing them over to my pretty visitor’s father, who willingly lent me his spear for the purpose of destroying them. The bait of a few grains of boiled rice at the entrance of the burrows brought them out in shoals and gave me the opportunity of spearing them. ‘What do you expect will be your fate?’ said this pious Buddhist as he once took the struggling vermin from the spear, ‘when the time comes for me to serve you as you are serving that creature?’ They all looked forward to the pleasure of decapitating us, and when in a mild humour would promise me as a favour, to use their greatest skill so that I should scarcely feel it. What a consoling thought!
“Shut up close in my little cell, I thought that at all events my feelings would no longer be harrowed with the sight of deeds of blood. To a certain extent it was so; but even here there was no abiding peace and quietness. One night as I was vainly endeavouring to coax myself asleep, the screams of an unfortunate wretch in the inner prison fell upon my ear, and the door of my cell being at the time unfastened and the prison wall not more than three feet off, curiosity prompted me to peep through a crack to see what fresh mischief was on foot. Never shall I forget the foul assassination I witnessed. The inmates were breathlessly silent, evidently expecting some evil. The cries proceeded from a young man who lay stretched on the floor with his feet in the stocks. The lamp was burning dimly, giving just enough light to show the form of a grim pahquet striding toward his victim. Without a word, he stamped several times on the mouth of the youth with his heavy wooden shoes with a force which must have broken his teeth and jaws into fragments. From my hiding place, where I stood trembling with terror, I heard the bones crack and crash. Still the cries were not altogether silenced, when the monster seized the club of the savage, and with repeated blows on the body and head pounded the poor sufferer to death. The corpse was then taken from the stocks and buried in the prison yard.
“Now news came of the defeat of the Burmese troops in the field, and the governor wreaked his vengeance on us. We were all hustled again from our cells into the inner prison, to await any fresh orders that might be issued from the palace. A merciful Providence again averted the danger. For a few days, probably a week, we were kept in the old den of corruption, when time, as before, softened down asperities, the rage of the governor and of our keepers began to evaporate, and a little renewed coaxing, backed by such insignificant bribes as our people could yet afford to pay, regained for us the favour of the cells in which we were once more installed, and my war of extermination against the rats recommenced.
“While we were passing this week in the inner prison, a frightful event took place, which threatened the immediate destruction of the whole community; indeed, it is wonderful that the instinct of self-preservation did not deter our parent of the prison from executing his order. A woman was brought in covered with the pustules of the small-pox. Our doctor looked aghast and so did we all, as well we might. It was a case quite beyond his treatment, though it is strange the versatile doctor did not undertake the cure. Even the Burmese prisoners themselves expressed their astonishment, but remonstrance was useless. The gaolers, however, showed a little common sense by placing the unfortunate creature in a clear spot by herself to avoid contact with the other inmates of the prison, with delicate threats of punishment if she moved from it. We never heard what induced this barbarity, but she was most likely suffering for the misconduct of some relative in the war, and the authority who sent her there could not have been aware of the disease, for she had not been among us more than twenty-four hours when she was again taken away.
“But by what means was infection averted? Inoculation or vaccination was unknown. Here were about fifty persons living in the same confined room without ventilation, and yet not one of them took the disease. The fact seems almost miraculous, and I should have doubted the nature of the malady had it not been acknowledged and dreaded by everyone, the natives as well as ourselves. I can only account for our immunity by the free use of tobacco.
“After an engagement with the British troops, many were taken prisoners and were brought to the prison. Unfortunately, it so happened that one of the freaks, already noticed as common to the gaolers, had at this time consigned all our party to the inner prison, and we beheld with horror about a hundred of these men step one after another through the wicket into our already well-filled prison, one of the ringed fraternity remaining inside to see that they were packed as close as possible. The floor was literally paved with human beings, one touching and almost overlapping the other on every side. It soon became evident what must follow. Difficulty in breathing, profuse perspiration and other disagreeables, overcame the natural terror of their tormentors, and the suffering multitude began to cry aloud for air and water. The horrors of the notorious ‘black hole of Calcutta’ must have been reËnacted had the building been of brick, but the manner of its construction, before explained, fortunately prevented it. At length the clamour of the captives, working probably on the fears of the gaolers themselves, induced them to open the wicket door for the night, some of their number keeping ward outside as sentinels. By this means a general disaster was avoided.
“This temporary influx of prisoners was the cause of greater anxiety to me than to my companions from a peculiar circumstance. The stock of fetters in the establishment ran short, and to provide for this unexpected demand our three pairs of fetters were taken off for the night, one ring only being left on the ankle, and by this we were chained one to another, two by two, like hounds in couples, only by the leg instead of the neck. Perhaps the reader may think this was, at all events, a slight respite, for which we ought to have been thankful. So it was, to all except myself, for the luxury of being able once more to stretch the legs apart was, no doubt, a most grateful refreshment. But—my flesh creeps when I think of it—I was chained to a leper. My companion was an unfortunate Greek, whose ankles had by this time broken out into unmistakable open leprous sores, with which a few inches of chain alone prevented contact, while at the same time it kept me in terrible proximity. The chain was kept at its full length all night, as may be supposed, and sundry nervous jerkings from time to time on my part to assure myself that it was so, indicated the nature of my alarm to the poor man, who was not unconscious of his malady, though he would not openly admit it. He grew irritated at my studied avoidance of him, and raised the question himself only to deny it. This voluntary allusion to it by himself, notwithstanding his denial, only tended to confirm the fact. With what joy did I submit myself the next day to the hands of my worthy parent, while he again invested me with my wonted complement of irons. With what anxiety, too, did I watch for weeks, searching diligently my ankles for the first symptoms of the contagion, fearing I might unwittingly have rubbed against the infected man and become inoculated with his loathsome disease. Happily I escaped without accident.”
This horrible imprisonment was protracted into the sultry months of March and April, and the wretched sufferers were left throughout heavily laden with five pairs of fetters in a gloomy filthy dungeon, without air or light, or even water to wash their fevered bodies, constantly associated with the worst felons and sharing their dreadful expectation to be taken out and executed. Finally, as the relieving army approached, they were removed from Ava further into the country, and the scene changed for the better as regards personal treatment. The prisoners had at least fresh air, freedom from vermin, lighter chains, water to wash in, exercise in the yard when their wounded feet were sufficiently healed to allow them to walk, and as much comfort as possible in a Burmese prison. But fresh terrors were caused by the importation of a huge lioness into the prison enclosure. It was confined in a strong cage, but was kept in a state of constant fury and grew more and more ferocious, being kept continually without food. The luckless prisoners began to believe that they were to be thrown as a prey to the wild beast, but it grew visibly weaker and weaker and presently died of starvation. The reason for shutting up the lioness with the human victims of the terrified king was never explained. Meanwhile the British troops pressed on and threatened shortly to capture the capital by storm. The last and most terrible ordeal of all was now impending. It was openly announced that the white prisoners were to be sacrificed to save the king by being buried alive before the broken and dispirited Burmese army. But another decisive battle intervened, the prisoners were hastily released from gaol and carried to Ava, whence they were borne by water to meet the British flotilla on its way up stream, and the painful captivity was at an end.
The penal code of old Burmah in the pre-English days was primitive and of ancient origin, being based largely upon the laws first promulgated by Menu. Trial by ordeal was a very general rule, and many forms were similar to those obtaining in other parts of the world. One was to plunge a finger wrapped in a thin palm leaf into molten tin; again, accused and accuser were immersed under water and the case was won by the party who could remain the longest time below. Or two candles made of equal portions of wax, carefully weighed, were lighted by the two litigants, and the one which burned longest was adjudged to have won.
“In the Indies,” says one old authority, “when one man accuses another of a crime punishable by death, it is customary to ask the accused if he is willing to go through trial by fire, and if he answers in the affirmative, they heat a piece of iron till it is red hot; then he is told to put his hand on the hot iron, and his hand is afterward wrapped up in a bay leaf, and if at the end of three days he has suffered no hurt he is declared innocent and delivered from the punishment which threatened him. Sometimes they boil water in a cauldron till it is so hot no one may approach it; then an iron ring is thrown into it and the person accused is ordered to thrust in his hand and bring up the ring, and if he does so without injury he is declared innocent. Sometimes an iron chain or ball is used instead of the ring. Sometimes a vessel of oil is heated, and a cocoanut is thrown in to test the temperature, and if it cracks, then the suspected person may prove his innocence by taking copper coins out of the boiling oil.” Another ordeal was to take the accused to the tomb of a Mohammedan saint and walk past, having first loaded him with heavy fetters. If the fetters fall off, he is declared to be clear. “I have heard it said,” is the comment of one authority who had little confidence in the good faith of the tribunal, “that by some artful contrivance the fetters are so applied as to fall off at a particular juncture.”
The rich expiated any offence by the payment of a fine, while the impecunious suffered imprisonment, stripes with a rattan, mutilation, endless slavery, and in the extreme case, death. The sentence to slavery extended to all a man’s belongings and to his descendants forever. Capital punishment was performed by decapitation, and a fiendish executioner often prolonged the agony of the condemned convict. To throw a victim to be devoured by wild beasts or trodden to death by elephants was a practice only surrendered in recent times. In the northern provinces crucifixion was common, but the instrument was not in the shape of an ordinary cross. It was more like a double ladder consisting of three upright bamboos crossed by three horizontal bars, and upon these two more were laid in the shape of a St. Andrew’s cross. Three scaffolds were commonly erected on river banks or on sand banks in the stream, and were constantly seen on the Irrawady. Sometimes the culprit was killed before he was affixed to the cross; sometimes he was tied up and rendered helpless by a few spear thrusts, or disembowelled by a sword cut across the stomach. In any case, the body was left suspended until the flesh was pecked off by vultures and the bones fell off by decay. When the mouths of the Irrawady were Burmese territory, the criminal was lashed to a tree stump at low water and left to be drowned by the incoming tide. The fishes, more voracious than the vultures, were often more expeditious than the sea and ate their prey alive. The tree, one of the undeveloped growth in the mangrove swamps, was familiarly known as the “stump of hell.”
Imprisonment, as we have seen from the previous pages, was often worse than death. But there might be some relaxation of durance. With money a prisoner might appease his gaolers. He could by payment secure release daily to go home, eat his meals and pass his time in comfortable idleness, provided he came punctually back at night and allowed himself to be again incarcerated. Nevertheless, the friendless and impecunious preferred to suffer a public flogging, inflicted on the culprit at all the street corners. Bribery and corruption, buying ease from dishonest gaolers, speedily disappeared under the British rule. An equable uniform system has been adopted for all prisoners, and the demeanour of even the worst is outwardly quiet. They are for the most part irreclaimable gaol-birds, with all the traits and characteristics of the congenital criminal.
The predatory instinct predominates in the character of the Burman. He is consumed with a desire to lay violent hands upon his neighbours’ goods and possessions. He is a Dacoit, a thief and highwayman by inheritance. One who knew Burmah intimately was convinced that the evil propensity was inborn in every Burmese child, and was stimulated as he grew up by Dacoit stories. The example of others who had taken to the business and become famous for enterprising raids, was always before the youth of every generation. It was no disgrace to a young fellow to be concerned in a Dacoity attack upon a neighbouring village, but very much the reverse, and the most successful robbers were generally treated with much consideration and respect.
A Dacoit band for the most part numbered five or six; they were not all armed with firearms, but they fired a few shots on making a descent to give warning of their approach, and no resistance was offered as they swooped down with loud shouts and much waving of swords. Ransom was demanded or the village, if deserted, was looted, and the Dacoits fled before the outrage became known to the police. Then pursuit was organised, but was generally fruitless. The Dacoits were close at hand, in the very village, and might be easily seized, but no one would give information, as that would be deemed an unpardonable offence. To betray an offender into the hands of justice is a sin against religion much more than against morality. There is the utmost difficulty, therefore, in tracing crime in Burmah. British police officers were driven to death in ceaseless efforts to catch Dacoits, hunting them perpetually for months and months and seldom, if ever, laying hands on a single offender.
Summary vengeance was meted out to “informers.” On one occasion, a well-to-do villager in Lower Burmah had assisted in the capture of a notorious Dacoit. Some of the prisoner’s friends, without waiting for the issue of the trial, visited the traitor’s house and upbraided him with being the cause of the Dacoit’s apprehension. “We mean to punish you for this,” they said. “You shall be burned alive; which do you prefer, that the fire should be lighted here in your own house, or outside the village?” His wife offered a thousand rupees to buy him off, but it was sternly refused, and he was forthwith put to death. In another instance, a man who received a reward for securing the arrest of a band was obliged to surrender the money to other Dacoits, who called him to account, and to prevent his repeating the offence, his head was cut off and exhibited on a pole.
Dacoity, when the complete pacification of Burmah was so long delayed, became the last form of resistance of the people. The one time thieves were promoted into rebels and insurgents. The Burmese did not all accept British rule very willingly, and the government resolved to finally crush opposition by exterminating the dissidents under the name of Dacoity. Many serious encounters, costly in human life, were fought; many leaders of small bands long evaded pursuit and gave much trouble. But vigorous measures persistently carried out gradually put down all opposition, and the most active Dacoits ended on the gallows or found their way to prison or to the penal settlements. A good picture has been preserved of one prominent Dacoit who had long ravaged the country and been guilty of many crimes; and upon whom a sentence of penal servitude for life was at length passed. “A small, spare, thin-visaged man, whose features have nothing in them that would bear out his character of a cruel ruffian and leader of men ... yet such was the power of his name that a sum large enough to be a fortune to any three natives was offered to whoever should kill or capture him, before his career was checked.” Every gaol in Burmah has its complement of such life convicts, reckless desperadoes, a source of constant anxiety to those in charge of them.
To follow this man on his reception and through his treatment will give a good idea of prison life in Burmah. His clothing was first issued to him; a loin cloth of coarse brown stuff and a strip of sacking to serve as his bed. His hair was close cut and his head was as smooth as the palm of his hand, save for one small tuft left on the crown; his name was registered in the great book, and he was led to the blacksmith’s shop, where his leg irons were riveted on him, anklets in the form of a heavy ring to which a connecting ring with two straight iron bars was attached. At the same time a neck ring of iron as thick as a lead pencil was welded on, with a plate attached, nine inches by five, on which a paper recording the personal description of the individual was pasted. This was called the thimbone, and its adoption became necessary through the frauds practised by the convicts.
At one time every new arrival was given a tin medal stamped with his number, which was hung round his neck with a string. But it was found that these records were frequently exchanged among the prisoners. A prisoner sentenced to a long term often assumed the identity of a short term convict, who accepted the more irksome penalty for a money consideration. At the present time, with the irremovable thimbone, these exchanges are rendered impossible. It is strange that such a simple process of preserving identities is not enforced in Siberia, where Russian convicts have long made a practice of fraudulent exchanges.
“If there is a type of revolting human ugliness, it is the Burmese gaol-bird,” says the same authority, “with his shaven head and the unmistakable stamp of criminal on his vicious face. All convicts seem to acquire that look of low, half-defiant cunning from their associates, and a physiognomist would not hesitate to describe nine-tenths of the men before us as bad characters if he saw them in any society. Many of this gang are Dacoits, and their breasts, arms and necks are picture galleries of tattooed devices, fondly cherished by the owners as charms against death or capture. Some have rows of unsightly warts, like large peas, upon the breast and arms which mark the spots where the charms have been inserted,—scraps of metal and other substances inscribed with spells known only to the wise men who deal in such things. One or two natives of India are amongst the gang, and these are conspicuous by the absence of the tattooing universally found on the Burman’s thighs. A powerfully built convict at the end of the rank, in addition to the usual irons, has his ankle rings connected by a single straight bar, so that he can only stand with his feet twelve inches apart. ‘Look at that fellow,’ says the superintendent; ‘he is in for five years, and his time would have been up in three months. A week ago he was down at the creek with his gang working timber, and must needs try to escape. He was up to his waist in water and dived under a raft, coming to the surface a good fifty yards down the stream. The guard never missed him until a shout from another man drew their attention, when they saw him swimming as hard as he could go, irons and all, towards a patch of jungle on the opposite side.’ Amongst a repulsive horde this man would take first place without competition. ‘Reckless scoundrel,’ is written on every line of his scowling face, and such he undoubtedly is. After the severe flogging his attempted escape earned for him, he assaulted and bit his guards and fellow prisoners, and the bar between his anklets was the immediate result.
“Conspiracies to break out are not uncommon, although they are seldom matured, owing to the system of never allowing one batch of men to remain together for more than a night or two in succession. A determined attempt to ‘break gaol’ took place in the great central prison at Rangoon a few years ago, resulting in a stand-up fight between warders and convicts. Some twenty ‘lifers’ confined in a large stone cell, whose gate opened upon their workyard, were the culprits. The hammers and road metal which provided their daily labour were kept in this yard, and the first aim of the convicts was to obtain access to the shed where these weapons lay. About midnight the attention of the sentry was called to the illness of one of the occupants of the cell by another man, who was apparently the only wakeful member of the gang besides the sham invalid. A Madrassee apothecary was called to the grated window of the den, and obtained sufficient information to enable him to prepare some remedy. On his return with the potion, seeing that all the convicts were sound asleep, he did not attempt to give the medicine to the sick man through the window, but against the rules caused the guard to open the gate intending to take it into the cell himself. The instant the gate was opened, the slumbering convicts sprang to their feet, rushed at the apothecary and knocked him down in such a position that his recumbent form effectually prevented the guard behind from closing it. They quickly made their way into the workshed, and arming themselves with hammers and stones, prepared to resist the warders who had been attracted by the noise and the shouts of a sentry on the wall. A furious conflict now ensued between the warders, big, muscular Punjabees armed with heavy cudgels, and the convicts with their extemporised weapons. The warders were reinforced until both parties were fairly matched, and the rough and tumble fight in the dark progressed amid extraordinary confusion. The workyard was overlooked by two huge wings of the gaol in which a large number of prisoners were confined; these men, roused to a frantic pitch of excitement by the uproar below, dashed about their wards like caged animals with screams and yells of encouragement to their fellows; while the sentries in the watch towers on the main wall kept up a desultory fire in the air to prove to the convicts the impossibility of escaping, even if they should succeed in scaling the high spiked iron railing of their yard.
“The combatants fought hand-to-hand for some time, neither side gaining any advantage, whilst above the roar of human voices and the sickening crash of heavy clubs on the convicts’ shaven skulls the alarm bell clashed out warning that military assistance from the distant barracks was required. Warders had been summoned from all parts of the gaol, and a general outbreak seemed imminent when the appearance of the superintendent with a revolver suddenly decided matters. Panic seized the convicts; they dropped their weapons with one accord and crowded back into the cell, leaving two of their number dead in the yard. It would be impossible to conceive a more ghastly sight than that row of naked, trembling convicts as the warders now ranged them in the vault-like den to be counted. The dim light of oil-lanterns fell upon upturned faces, before repulsive enough, but now positively startling in their hideous disfigurement of dust and clotting blood. Every man was streaming with blood from wounds about the head, more or less severe, for the convicts had fought with the desperation of men to whom success meant liberty. They were doomed to drag out their lives in that earthly hell; a flogging was the worst that could happen to them if their attempt failed, possible freedom the reward if it succeeded. Who would not risk the first for the slenderest chance of the second? They took the risk and fate had gone against them. The excitement was over, and they huddled together against the wall of the cell in an agony of fear for the consequences their night’s work would bring upon them to-morrow, staring enviously at those whose wounds necessitated their removal to hospital. For them, at least, a few days’ reprieve was certain before they suffered lash and punishment drill.”
PRISONS OF CHINA
