Note {5} — Chapter XXXIV

Note 5.—“Filial piety is the fundamental principle of the Chinese polity.” (Amiot, V. 129.) “In cases of extreme unfilial conduct, parents sometimes accuse their children before the magistrate, and demand his official aid in controlling or punishing them; but such instances are comparatively rare.... If the parent require his son to be publicly whipped by the command of the magistrate, the latter is obliged to order the infliction of the whipping.... If after punishment the son remain undutiful and disobedient, and his parents demand it at the hands of the magistrate, the latter must, with the consent of the maternal uncles of the son, cause him to be taken out to the high wall in front of the yamun, and have him there publicly whipped to death.” (Doolittle, 102–103.)