Speaker 1: Judgment of a solomon from the Chinese of Who sung
Ling Herbert M. Giles translator. In our district there lived
two men named Hu Cheng and Feng Nan, between whom
there existed an old feud. The former, however, was the
stronger of the two, and accordingly Feng disguised his feelings
under a specious appearance of friendship, though who never placed
much faith in his professions. One day they were drinking together, and,
being both of them rather the worse for liquor, they
began to brag of the various exploits they had achieved.
What care I for poverty? Cried Who, when I can
lay a hundred ounces of silver on the table at
a moment's notice. Now Feng was well aware of the
state of whose affairs, and did not hesitate to scout
such pretensions until Who further informed him in perfect seriousness,
that the day before he had met a merchant traveling
with a large sum of money, and had tumbled him
down a dry well by the wayside, in confirmation of
which he produced several hundred ounces of silver, which really
belonged to a brother in law on whose behalf he
was managing some negotiation for the purchase of land. When
they separated, Feg went off and gave information to the
magistrate of the place, who summoned Who to answer to
the charge, who then told the actual facts of the case,
and his brother in law and the owner of the
land in question corroborated his statement. However, on examining the
dry well by letting a man down with a rope
round him, lo there was a headless corpse lying at
the bottom, who was horrified at this and called Heaven
to witness that he was innocent, whereupon the magistrate ordered
him twenty or thirty blows on the mouth for lying
in the presence of such irrefragable proof, and cast him
into the condemned cell, where he lay loaded with chains.
Orders were issued that the corps was not to be removed,
and a notification was made to the people calling upon
the relatives of the deceased to come forward and claim
the body. Next day a woman appeared and said deceased
was her husband, that his name was Ho, and that
he was proceeding on business with a large sum of
money about him when he was killed by who. The
magistrate observed that possibly the body and the well might
not be that of her husband, to which the woman
replied that she felt sure it was, and accordingly, the
corpse was brought up and examined. When the woman's story
was found to be correct, she herself did not go
near the body, but stood at a little distance, making
the most doleful lamentation, until at length the magistrate said,
we have got the murderer, but the body is not complete.
You go home and wait until the head has been discovered,
when life shall be given for life. He then summoned
who before him and told him to produce the head
by the next day, under penalty of severe torture, but
who only wandered about with the guard sent in charge
of him, crying and lamenting his fate, but finding nothing.
The instruments of torture were then produced and preparations were
made as if for torturing who. However, they were not applied,
and finally the magistrate sent him back to prison, saying,
I suppose that in your hurry you didn't notice where
you dropped the head. The woman was then brought before
him again, and on learning that her relatives consisted only
of one uncle, the magistrate remarked, a young woman like
you left alone in the world will hardly be able
to earn a livelihood here. She burst into tears and
implored the magistrate's pity. The punishment of the guilty man
has already been decided upon, but until we get the head,
the case cannot be closed. As soon as it is closed,
the best thing you can do is to marry again.
A young woman like yourself should not be in and
out of a police court. The woman thanked the magistrate
and retired, and the latter issued a notice to the people,
calling upon them to make a search for the head.
On the following day, a man named Wang, a fellow
villager of the deceased, reported that he had found the
missing head, and his report proving to be true. He
was rewarded with one thousand cash. The magistrate now summoned
the woman's uncle above mentioned and told him that the
case was complete, but that as it involved such an
important matter as the life of a human being, there
would necessarily be some delay in closing it for good
and all. Translator's footnote. There is a widespread belief that
human life in China is held at a cheap rate.
This may be accounted for by the fact that death
is the legal punishment for many crimes not considered capital
in the West, and by the severe measures that are
always taken in cases of rebellion, when the innocent and
guilty are often indiscriminately massacred. In times of tranquility, however,
this is not the case, and the execution of a
criminal is surrounded by a number of formalities which go
far to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. The Sia
juan Lu opens with the words there is nothing more
important than human life Herbert M. Giles translator, end of
translator's footnote. Meanwhile, added the magistrate, your niece is a
young woman and has no children. Persuade her to marry again,
and so keep herself out of these troubles, and never
mind what people may say. The uncle at first refused
to do this, upon which the magistrate was obliged to
threaten him, until he was ultimately forced to consent. At
this the woman appeared before the magistrate to thank him
for what he had done, whereupon the latter gave out
that any person who was willing to take the woman
to wife was to present himself at his yamen. Immediately afterwards,
an application was made by the very man who had
found the head. The magistrate then sent for the woman
and asked her if she could say who was the
real murderer, to which she replied that Hu Chin had
done the deed. No, cried the magistrate. It was not he.
It was you and this man here here Both began
loudly to protest their innocence. I have long known this,
but fearing to leave the smallest loophole for escape, I
have tarried thus long in elucidating the circumstances. How to
the woman, before the corpse was removed from the well,
were you so certain that it was your husband's body
because you already knew he was dead? And does a
trader who has several hundred ounces of silver about him
dress as shabbily as your husband was dressed? And you
to the man, how did you manage to find the
head so readily because you were in a hurry to
marry Mary the woman. The two culprits stood there as
pale as death, unable to utter a word in their defense,
and on application of torture, both confessed the crime. For
this man, the woman's paramour, had killed her husband. Curiously enough,
about the time of Hu Chang's braggart joke, who was
accordingly released. But Feng suffered the penalty of a false accuser.
He was severely bambooed and banished for three years. The
case was thus brought to a close without the wrongful
punishment of a single person