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Laying on the punishment

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Then the sentence is passed by the compound manager—ten, fifteen, or twenty strokes, according to the crime. The coolie, with a Chinese policeman on either side of him, is taken away about ten paces. Then he stops, and at the word of a policeman drops his pantaloons, and falls flat on his face and at full length on the floor. One policeman holds his feet together; another, with both hands pressed firmly on the back of his head, looks after that end of his body. Then the flagellator, with a strip of thick leather on the end of a three-foot wooden handle, lays on the punishment, severely or lightly, as instructed. Should the prisoner struggle after the first few strokes, another policeman plants a foot in the middle of his back until the full dose has been administered.