Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Volume 2)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1880. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... delivering letters entrusted to them; steal bricks from walls as they pass by, or oil and candles from lamps;29 poor people who do not behave properly and rich people who are not compassionate to the poor; those who promise a loan and go back on their word: those who see people suffering from illness, yet cannot bring themselves to part with certain useful drugs they may have in their possession; those who know good prescriptions but keep them secret; those who throw vessels which have contained medicine or broken cups and bottles into the street; those who allow their mules and ponies to be a nuisance to other people; those who destroy their neighbour's crops or his walls and fences; those who try to bewitch their enemies,30 and those who try to frighten people in any way, -- all these shall be punished according to the gravity of their offences, and shall be thrust by the devils into the great Gehenna until their time arrives for passing into the Fifth Court. O ye children of this world, if on the 18th day of the 2nd moon you register an oath to sin no more, then you may escape the various wards of this Hall; and if to this book you add examples of rewards and punishments following upon virtues and crimes, and hand them down to posterity for the good of the human race, so that all who read may repent them of their wickednesses--then they will be without sin, and you not without merit! THE FIFTH COURT. His Infernal Majesty, Yen Lo,3: said, --Our proper place is in the First Court; but, pitying those who die by foul means, and should be sent back to earth to have their wrongs redressed, we whole districts as their particular field of operations and are very jealous of any interference. I know of a case in which the right of scavengering a town had been in the same ...