Plate XLVIII. — Punishment for Insolence to a Superior
Piercing the ear with various sharp instruments is among the punishments of the Chinese. A man who had been insolent to one of the suite of Lord Macartney’s embassy, was sentenced to receive fifty strokes from the pant-zee or bamboo, in addition to having his hand pinned to his ear by an iron wire, which was said to have been inflicted immediately after the bastinade.
The middle figure is an inferior officer of the police, who holds a painted board on which the crime is exhibited to spectators; the other personage is a mandarin reproving the culprit.