ABSTRACT
The prisons of China are very harsh, principally those for them who are condemned to death and those for them who have done something worthy of death. And all the jails are very strong, and each city which is the head of a province hath thirteen jails, and in six of them are the men condemned to death. After all the prisoners have been laid in the chain-gang they place on top of them all a floor-board, which they lock very fast, leaving only a very narrow aperture below, just sufficient to contain the prisoners' bodies. The jails are so strong and so well guarded, that never in China has a prisoner been known to have escaped from any of them. All the prisoners in the morning are brought forth from the chain-gangs, and they generally all work as shoe-makers, chiefly of silken shoes embroidered with twisted thread.
