Letter: Death cages

THE 'cruel and unusual punishment' of the slow hanging in Shanghai in 1937 pictured alongside your item 'New evidence of Japan's war atrocities' (18 September) was in fact current in China long before.

I have a postcard sent by my uncle, Vallance Guttenden, from HMS Alacrity, then on the 'China Station', dated 19 April 1907, showing 'Chinese in death cages', identical with those in your 1937 picture.

V Clout

Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire