Show decapitation IN CHINA model of elocution of by an writer the execution of the two japanese spies whom america delivered up to the chinese and the decapitation of a man of wars captain accused of cowardice in the sea fight oil ping yang were recent notable instances of the ube of the heads mans sword in china there have been other headings beheadings be for offenses growing out of the war and for the ordinary criminal offenses and these have lent a new interest to the subject even to foreigners resident in china who frequently read of such punishment but seldom witness them or hear them described I 1 have been BO fortunate as to fall in with a distinguished european who witnessed the legal slaughter of a number of criminals in peking the account he has given me of what be saw is so unlike the popular methods of justice that I 1 have written down the substance of it for publication in harpers weekly the official on duty on the morning of which 1 speak having reached the mat shed clad in all the glory of a mandarins dress button necklace breast cloth and all ordered the men brought before him one by one the law says that in such cases tho condemned men shall admit their guilt and ask that punishment be no longer deferred like most all good laws and almost all good logic in china this regulation is turned into mera ceremony and pretense the prisoners neither say nor do anything but a man who stands behind each one pushes him over bumps his head on the ground and says yow this word or one with that sound means 1 I want and the presiding mandarin understands it to have been uttered by the prisoner and to mean 1 I want to be punished while the official ticks off the mans name upon the list before him the man is pressed down upon the ground and a red cross is painted on his neck this is done in order that the right head may be fitted upon the right body afterward if proof of the mans death is required for official entry the prisoner thua painted is pulled away to the execution ground where the headsman is heating his sword in a great caldron of hot water the swords are rather more like knives than swords each is a yard in length half an inch thick at the edge and an inch and a half or two inches thick at the back if you should weld together nine or ten of our heaviest axes one laid beyond he other you would make something like on a of these knives the victim is laid on his belly and face and his legs are lied together A long piece of whipcord is looped under the mans jaw and tied into ins pigtail so much of its free end iff left that two men go off with it to a distance and pull on it with all their might while the third one sits on the condemned mans neck the executioner seizes a knife and stands over the victim whose neck is seen to pull out and out and out the knife falls the head is severed and frequently the men who are pulling the whipcord fall backward and roll half over like tumblers in a circus the executioner picks up the head and holds it and calmly and makes a mark upon the tally list in front of him I 1 waa less stolid than he especially when happening to glance at one of the heads I 1 saw it open its mouth just as it was held up to the mandarins view it was then placed beside the body and the next felon was brought out and treated the same way two or three prisoners were to be strangled on this occasion and though I 1 went away twice from sheer inability to witness their execution I 1 was urged back by a friend who accompanied me and thus I 1 saw enough to be able to describe that mode of punishment also the executioner tied a short bit of whipcord around each mans throat and then put a stick of wood in the slack of the cord jintil it was evident that it could not be made tighter for some reason he immediately loosened theard the ord i neach said and it again and fastened it the victims made no sound but a quiver passed over their bodies and their fingers were seen io curl in as if their fists were being clinched that was all the mandarin sent a clerk to check off the names of these victims and thus the law was vindicated or avenged 1 |