Drawing by william alexander, draughtsman of the macartney embassy to china in 1793. The prisoner wearing a tcha, known to europeans as cangue, is being led on a chain by a magistrates assistant, to a gate of a city or any place frequented by the populace, where he is exposed for the day to derision. The division in the cangue which receives the head, is kept together by pegs, and secured by a slip of paper pasted over the joint, on which is affixed the seal of the court official and written the cause of punishment. A tcha (cangue) was a heavy collar of wood; the weight (from sixty to two hundred pounds) and duration (from one day to three months) depended on the magnitude of the crime. When the prisoner was released, he was treated with a bamboo stick to complete the punishment. Image taken from the costume of china, illustrated in forty-eight coloured engravings, published in london in 1805. Date: circa 1800.
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