THE GUILLOTINE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9414, 7 April 1909, Page 2

THE GUILLOTINE.

Snob has been the popularity of the guillotine in France, except with #|the criminals of late, that a cafe-, at Easonnes thought it an opportune moment to ffiake money out of it. He, therefore, had a fairly large toy model, 'some three feet high, made, and placed [on the ~ counter. For some days’ 1 he was taking in money hand over fist. For two sous anyone could see how M. Deibler’s machine worked, and was given a cheap cigar into the bargain. An ingenious mechanism trotted ont a small wooden man with his hair cut short and neck bare. Other wooden figures, representing the executioner’s'assistauts, stretched the man out on the board, a priest held np a crucifix/and a miniature figure of M. Deibler pulled a cord. This looseped the Jknife, which out the man’s bead off as neatly as the real machine. The bead was then mechanically dropped into a diminutive basket, and the little toy convict’s truncated hddy was thrown into a box full of sawdust. After the head bad been glued on the body the operation could be indefinitely repeated. To see such a show for only two sous was worth while, and the whole town came to buy cigars. “What was your idea in getting up this exhibition?” the proprietor was asked. “It was to show that the labouring classes were not. opposed to capital punishment. The proof is that every man in the factory close at hand came to see how the criminal’s head was chopped off. For some days I made more money ont of the model than M. Deibler ont of his real machine. 1 had on the average 150 customers a day who paid down their two sous each. Now it is all over. Some abolitionists complained to the authorities that my machine was a public scandal, and I have received an order from the police' to remove! b. ” In fact,, a big sign’is now hung Tin the oaf* window which states “by order, guillotining is not done here.”