In City Hanyang, a place is called the Lake of the Flayed Child. It is dry now. But on the shores of the pond that used to be, a woman was once frightening a refractory boy by omitted crying, ' Come, mandarin, come! the boy has struck his mother.' Which cries a passing mandarin heard, and stopped his chair. The mother explained that she was talking in sport. She urged that the child was not old enough to know good and evil.
' We will see about that,' said the magistrate. ' Bring a bowl of rice and a bowl of muck.' The child chose the former. ' He does know, you see. Flay him.' It was done. The mandarin was fully in accord with the law of China, for whosoever curses father or mother is to die."
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