THE EFFECTS OF WITNESSING AN EXECUTION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1405, 12 November 1886, Page 3

THE EFFECTS OF WITNESSING AN EXECUTION.

A terrible outcome of having witnessed an execution comes to us from France. It appears that a lad under 15 was ailowe !, not long ago to witness t ,e execution of a murderer at Versailles Tha effect produced upon him was intense, and ha was haunted by the lugubrious ecena of which he bad bean a spectator. H; could ta'k of no other subject but the guillotine, and to all with whom he conversed he described what he had witnessed. Horrible visions, he complained, pursued him at night, preventing him er j )ying that repose so neoeesiry for hia unbalanced mind. Luring the daytime he was equally tortured, imagining himself ti be an executioner, and declaring t'iat 1 he had a craving to see bloodshed. The unfortunate lad, who was apprenticed to a bootmaker, ultimately gave ’ p his employment, and for s 'me days was lost eight of, it bav.ng since transpired that he had been seen wandering about the country. A day or two ago the fugitivs was discovered lying insensible by the road side, whilst close to him was a dog, whose head he had severed with a

butcher’s koifa On recovering from the swoon into which he hid fallen, he was found to ba raving mad, snl hai to be removed to a place of safety, pending his admission to a lunatic asyiam. The doctors who have examined him fear that this will prove a case of incurable insanity.