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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 November 2009
Leaou-tun-hing, inspector-general of Keang-nan province, presents an address to point out the expediency of early inquests in cases of homicide.
Amidst the great number and variety of imprisonments on criminal accusations, the most important are those which relate to the privation of life. Entering into a conspiracy to kill; killing with malicious intention; killing in an affray; causing death by driving a person to desperation; and killing by culpable negligence, constitute the real or proper cases. The cases of false imprisonment for homicide are where wounds are inflicted after death, to be made the grounds of a false accusation; and where the body is consumed or made away with for the same purpose. In all cases the most speedy investigation is of great importance, since from the nature of the wounds or hurts much evidence may be gathered with respect to the intention or disposition of the person that inflicted them; and from their old or new appearance, an inference may be drawn regarding the truth or falsehood of the accusation. Whenever the district magistrates met with a case of homicide, did they, in every instance, proceed without delay to the inquest of the body, while the wounds or hurts wrere yet fresh and unchanged, they might with more ease and certainty elicit the truth; at the same time that the guilty persons, being confronted at once with the magistrate before they had time to collect themselves, would be more likely, through fright, to betray their offence. Hence it may be deduced, that early inquests are the best, key to the elucidation of homicides. But the magistrates of districts, bearing on their shoulders the responsibility attached to such cases, appear always desirous to suppress them. As soon as a report or accusation is made, they purposely contrive delays, instead of proceeding immediately in person to the inquest, or they perhaps send a clerk into the town or village to compel the guilty person, by the agency of money, to make it up with the relations of the deceased, where it happens that these are very poor and needy.
page 87 note * One very particular feature of the Chinese law of homicide (and certainly a very improper one) is, that it seems instituted, not more for the satisfaction of public justice or the prevention of crime, than for the gratification of private revenge; nay it even goes so far, in some particular cases, as to encourage and justify a principle so subversive of the welfare of society, by awarding a very mitigated punishment to the deliberate murder of any person, in revenge for the death of a father or mother, and even of some inferior relations (Leu-Lee, sect, cccxxiii, page 352, of Sir G. T. Staunton's Penal Code of China). In most Chinese trials for homicide, it is evident that the relations are the real prosecutors: although among us it is treated purely as an offence against the public. To this antiquated error in legislation, the considering murder as a private wrong, and the possibility of compromising so great an offence against society by a bribe to the relations of the deceased, may be attributed many of the evils complained of in the above paper. We may learn from this, and indeed from the actual experience of the past, to recognize the spirit in which cases of homicide are prosecuted against Europeans at Canton. In nearly every instance where the point has been vehemently or obstinately urged, the relations have spurred on the local government by threats of an appeal to Peking if their revenge remained unsatisfied; and we may rest assured, that an adequate compromise in money, if offered in time, would almost always be successful, though the policy and propriety of such a measure in many cases might very fairly be questioned.
page 88 note * When the Gan-cha-sze, or judge, strangled himself in a fit of perplexity and despair.
page 88 note † It being the policy of the Chinese government to restrict the intercourse of one province with another, as well as with the most distant parts of the empire, almost entirely to inland navigation, a reference to the map will immediately shew that the inland trade between Fŭh-Këen and Ch 
-Keang is impeded by lofty mountains, where the rivers take their source, and where consequently they are unnavigable. The plenty of the one province, therefore, in such a bulky commodity as grain, cannot easily supply the scarcity of the other, except by sea.
page 88 note ‡ Recommended in Mr. Ball's pamphlet as the best seat of European trade.