REVOLTING PUNISHMENT OF MURDERERS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 25, 29 January 1873, Page 4

REVOLTING PUNISHMENT OF MURDERERS.

BROKEN ON THE CROSS. One of the most revolting crimes ever committed in Servia was the assassination of tbe whole family of a wealthy farmer named Detristisy, in the Bialin district, had been murdered, and that the mother and two daughters (infants) had been outraged. The perpetrators, two men named Alexiry, and Moses Werthstein, an Austrian Jew, were speedily arrested, and the trial came off before the Fuli Bench of Criminal Justices. It lasted but one hour. Both were found guilty of murder, without extenuating circumstances, and sentenced to be broken on the cross. There was loud applause in the court when the sentence was pronounced. Alexiry listened to it without emotion ; Werthstein, however, broke into loud screams, tore his hair aud yelled for mercy. The, officers of the court had to drag him back to his cell. The day for their execution was fixed upon, and at 8 on the morning of tbat day an enormous concourse assembled to witness it. The scaffold was circular, of wood, and the only distinctive feature about it was a St. Andrew's • Cross, slightly elevated above the platform. One of the executioners was a heavy built man, the other almost a giant. Both were dressed in green flannel jackets and had their arms bare. When the clock on St. Mary's steeple struck eight, there emerged from the gates of the fortress a procession headed by four horsemen. Next followed the carriage in which the judges and tbe priests were seated. As the procession emerged from the gate loud shrieks were heard. They were those of Worthstein, who, chained as he was, hand and foot, screamed to heaven for help, but failed in drawing forth one sympathetic word from the crowd. On the platform the criminals were stripped of clothing, and Alexiry was first bound to the cross. Up to this time he preserved his equanimity. Now the executioner drew from a green bag a sort of iron club with a knob at its head. Tbe executioner then raised tbe club, and with one blow 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 blow tbe executioner gave him on the kuee-pan elicited from the culprit a shriek of pain that caused the blood of the spectators to freeze. After this infliction he seemed insensible, and the other blows that crushed his joints, and the finishing stroke on his belly, were given as to a dead man. Meanwhile Werthstein in his chains had to look on. He rent the air with bis lamentations, and came near fainting when the executioner dealt Alexiry the first blow. 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 upon the knee-pan made him howl still worse. For five minutes, an, eternity under the circumstances?-^ he. jeontinuedj'his yejls'j^d ( ,-i^;;wjpß;.f nptiuutii . the executioner gave hini three heavy blows on the abdomen that all was quiet, and Servian justice was satisfied.