BROKEN ON THE WHEEL.

Evening Star, Issue 3103, 29 January 1873, Page 2

BROKEN ON THE WHEEL.

One of the most revolting crimes ever committed in Servia was the assasination of the whole family of a wealthy farmer named Destristisy, in the Bialin district, about twenty miles from Belgrade, the capital. On the 24th of April, Destristisy, a man forty years of age, his wife Susannah, thirty-nine years old, and his three children—Frances, Katbiuka, and' Andrea—aged respectively twelve, nine, and four years old, were found in the house murdered. It waS also discovered that the mother and two daughters had been outraged. All the victims had been beaten with hlqdgeong and then gtab : bed. An active search was at once made fop the perpetrators. Two days afterwards they were discovered in a forest about four miles from where the crime had been committed. They were Sebastuloa Alexiry, formerly a non-commissioned officer in the army of the Saltan of Turkey, and Moses Alexander Werthstein, an Austrian Jew. The trial before the full Bench of Criminal Justices came off on the 11th June. It lasted but one hour. Both were found guilty of murder, without extenuating circumstances, and sentenced to be broken on the wheel. There was loud applause in Court when the sentence was pronounced. Ajexiry listened to it without emotion ; Werthstein, however, broke into loud screams, tore his hair, and yelled for mercy. The officers of the Court had to drag him back to bis cell. _ The 14th of July was fixed for the execution. They were to expiate their doom on the old glacis of the fortress of Belgrade, upon which Prince Eugene of Savoy once made his famous assault. The execution was to take place at eight a. m., and an enormous concourse as* sembled to witness it. The scaffold was oir« cular, of wood, and the only distinctive feature about it was a St. Andrew’s cross, slightly elevated above the platform. About half-past seven o’clock the executioners arrived. One was a heavy built man, and the other almost a giant. Both were dressed in green flannel jackets, and had their arms bare. When the clock of St. Mary’s steeple struck eight there emerged from the gate of the fortress a procession, headed by four horsemen. Next followed the carriage in which the judges and the priest were seated. As the procession emerged ‘from the galfg loud shrieks were heard. They Were those of Werthstein, who, oh&ined as he was, hand and foot, screamed to heaven for help. Under Ordinary circumstances his appeals might have had some effect upon the people. But knowing the fearful crime which he and his accomplice had committed, there was not a voice raised in his favor, and the soldiers were rather encouraged to punch him with the butt-ends of their muskets. When the criminals had been brought on the platform, every stitch of clothing left upon Alexiry was torn off, and he was firmly tied to tho St. Andrew’s cross. Until now he had preserved his equanimity. But now the executioner drew from a green bag a sort of iron club, with a knob at its head. The fastened criminal looked wistfully at the man who was to torture him and then put him to death. The executioner raised the iron club and crushed Alexiry*s right shoulder. The murderer gave a shriek, and made a desperate effort to free himself. He struggled desperately in his agony, but the next blovt the executioner gave him oh the knee-pan elicited from the culprit a shriek of pain that caused the blood of the spectators to freeze. After thjs infliction he seemed insensible, anq. the other plows that crushed his joints, and the finishing strode on his belly, were given as to a dead man. Meanwhile, Worth? stein in his chains had to look on. He rent the air With hfc lamwtatiww, and oaxne near

fainting away when the executioner dealt Alexiry the first blow. He flung himself on the floor and begged piteously for hie life ; but after the lifeless corpse of Alexiry had been detached from the fatal cross*. the Jew was dragged to it, and, in spite of his invocations, fastened to it like his accomplice. He yelled even before he received the first stroke with the iron club; but when that instrument of torture' descended upon bis shoulder joint, he gave an unearthly scream, and the executioner’s blow tfpon the kneepan made him howl still worse. For five minutes—an eternity under the circumstances—he continued his yells ; and it was not until the executioner gave him three heavy blows on the abdomen that all was quiet, and Servian justice was satisfied.