Two men and two children standing next to a Chinese man carrying the cangue around his neck as a punishment; a river and a boat in the background. Engraving by J. Hall after W. Alexander, 1796.

"XXVIII. Punishment of the Tcha. This, usually called by Europeans the Cangue, is a common punishment in China for petty offences. It consists of an enormous tablet of wood, with a hole in the middle to receive the neck, and two smaller ones for the hands, of the offender, who is sometimes sentenced to wear it for weeks or months together. He is suffered, pro vided his strength will enable him, to walk about; but the burden is so great, that he is generally glad to seek for a support of it against a wall or a tree. If a servant, or runner of the civil magistrate, takes it into his head that he has rested too long, he beats him with a whip made of leathern thongs till he rises. Near the gate of the Embassadors hotel, in Pekin, half a dozen of these instruments were placed in readiness, to clap upon the shoulders of any of the Chinese servants who should happen to transgress."--Staunton, loc. cit.