Note 76 — X. JOINING THE IMMORTALS.

This is the instrument commonly used for flogging criminals in China, and consists of a strip of split bamboo planed down smooth. Strictly speaking there are two kinds, the heavy and the light; the former is now hardly if ever used. Until the reign of K‘ang Hsi all strokes were given across the back; but that humane Emperor removed the locus operandi lower down, “for fear of injuring the liver or the lungs.” return to text