No consequences, except perhaps promotion, would follow from too rigorous treatment in such cases as these.
Resort to the bamboo as a means of extorting the confession of a prisoner is regarded by the people rather as the magistrate's confession of his own incapacity.

The education of the official, too easily and too freely turned into ridicule, gives him an insight into human nature which, coupled with a little experience, renders him extremely formidable to the shifty criminal or the crafty litigant.

As a rule, he finds no need for the application of pain.

There is a quaint story illustrative of such judicial methods as would be sure to meet with full approbation in China.

A magistrate, who after several hearings had failed to discover, among a gang accused of murder, what was essential to the completion of the case, namely, the actual hand which struck the fatal blow, notified the prisoners that he was about to invoke the assistance of the spirits, with a view to elicit the truth.