CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. The Garrotte In Spain.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 192, 19 February 1887, Page 2

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. The Garrotte In Spain.

The garrotte, or, as it is called in Spain, the Argolla, if not a remnant of the Inquisition, must have found its way into the Iberian peninsula from the East, for it is eimply a mechanical means of strangulation, and strangling, we know, has 1 for v centuries been the ueAal.meanß Employed by Orientals in catjry^og* out death sentences, whether legal or arbitrary. In Spain, aY; in all other European countries, the extreme penalty of the law is carried but in public, England being the only one which bas adopted private executions. Whether this system be a deterrent from murder or not, it is not my province hero to discuss ; suffice it to say that, in the opinion of the most eminent legists and philanthropists of Continental Europe, public executions are best, and exercise pu influence ob the lower orders that awakeus in them a healthy dread of the law, whereas if executions were to take place in private, ttie'majority of the criminal and illconditioned orders would never believe that they were carried out— a belief which would develop assassinations and militate against that resoect which the law, when administered publioly, obliges Though of recent years Spain has been the hotbed of revolutions and conspiracies, the Spaniard, as a rule, is a law-abiding, if not a law loving man. Certain classes of crimes are by him looked upon as venial sina ; yet there is do people so acute or who recognises more quickly the necepsity of punishing with severity certain offences against social order, as long as they are not offences of a political character. They hold murder in the utmost abhorrence, whether it ba prompted by revenge or rapacity ; and it is for this reason that the abrogation of capital punishment has never been seriously entertained by them. Although their system of strangling is quick, and, I am assured, as devoid of pain to the criminal as the guillotine, yet is is more repulsive and awe-inspiring, and the efiect of it on the senses of the spectatov, as well as the subject, revolting in the extreme. It is true there is ostensibly no blood spilled, still it is «s hideouß a sight a? any that public executions furnish, and, withal, as sickening. In the Piaza del aire puro (the place of pure air) the public executions are carried out It is on a high eminence and near the humble quarter of the city. From it you see all the environs of Madrid as far as the mountains of Guadamara, which fringe the horizon. It was hero I witnessed, a couple of years ago, the judicial death of a murderer. It was one morning in the Bpring of the ye a r, when the weather bad already begun to be warmed with the sultry winds of Africa, when the trees began to blossom and tho Air was laden with the perfumes of the map: nolia and the rose. I bhall never forget the Bcene. All Madrid seemed to be making festival, and thousands of men and women — the woman wero iv a large majority — had gathered in the Place garrulous and gay, and as frivolous a? if they had come out to see a bull fight or a theatrical spectacle. No one would have imagined that they had come hither to ccc a fellow creatme done to d«-ath by a grim executioner. As the execution was to take placs between ten and eleven, I took care to arrive on the scene early enough to obtain a good view. I confess the desire to assist at executions manifests a morbid taste, but -still such tastes, I take it, belong more to the tender-hearted and sympathetic than to the oruol and ungenial. As soon a? I approached the place the crowds became dense, and it appeared to me that I should not be able to get as close to the scaffold as I should wish. The people, however, seeing I was an Englishman, courteously made a passage for me, po that I managed to get as near as the soldiery would permit, and even these exhibited a courtesy to which we, alas ! are strangers, but which is thel strongest of Spanish characteristics. Around the scafiold thore were several detachments cf calvalry and infantry - Lancers, Hussars, Carbineers, and soldiers of the line. Thore was, po far as I could judge, no ostensible reason why euch an array of armed men should be present, unless it was to make tho lugubrious scene as imposing or as impressing as possible ; for io every ceremonial, ecclesiastical or civil, your Castillian loves pomp— and what would all the pomp and ceremonies in the world of Spain be if the military were absent ? Every criminal sentenced to capital punishment receive forty-eight hours' notice of his execution. These are given him to make hie tinal peace with his God, and are always paeped in the chapel of the prison in which he is confined. During these fearful hours, he and hif fellow-prisoners have to assist at the office for tho dead. Be has to hear over and over agrain supplications to heaven for forgiveness of hia sins, and up to the moment prior to his being led from the chapal to the scaffold he has to suffer death many times in his imagination. It is a system of torture that cannot be too severely censnred ; but it is a torture inflicted from a religious motive, and therefore must be excused, if not pardoned. Our system is even worse. But until you can persuade a legislature that the meutal suffering is not outweighed by the spiritual boom, or lulled by spiritual comfort, there is no hope of this mode of augmenting a criminal's agonies being frustrated or as much aa possible eliminated. On the scaffold were the murderer was to expiate his crime, I 3a w, on a stool or low table, which was covered with a white cloth, the garrotte glittering in the morning sun. It was a broad band of polished sfcoel, like a dog-collar, having no appearance whatever of a death-dealing instrument. Close by was a chair, on which tho criminal is seated, and at the back of it was o this the girrotte is attached a f ter having boen placed round the culprit's neck. It is then tightened by a screw, which is twisted by a handle long enough to give sufficient leverage so that in turning it no great exertion or strength on the part of the executioner is required. While I wait with nervous anxiety th« arrival of the criminal, I hear in the distance the tinkling of a bell. For a moment I imagine that it is the signal oC bis approach. But it ia not, for I gee slowly advancing through the crowd, which makes way for him, a man dressed like a priest, who is vigourouely ringing it. Around his neck ie a large green money-box, on which are printed in large red lettere, •• Pass y caridad " (Peace and charity). Hie duty is to collect alms from tho people to pay for masses for the repose of the soul of the wretch who co soon is to expiate his horrible murder on the scaffold. A few moments afterwards there is some commotion near me. The soldiers stand at Attention and draw closer to the platform. At the same time I see the executioner and his two assistants approach. The chief alone mounts the ladder ; the others stand on the ground a little distance from the «oldiers, He is of low stature and ■light frame, apparently about forty-five years of age. Bis eyes are dark, or flißsen with suppressed emotion. Yeb is movements are .regular and deliberate. After having carefully examined the Sarotte, ii)<3 striven to move the pout to fioe iftt ie eecur he walks up and down the

low platform awaiting tha .arrival* of his victim. We are noifto% kept mttiHtf f ftfr in about five minutes a prison van is driven through the assembled multitude up to the gteps of the scaffold; from out ot it first comes a prieist in hie canonicals, bearing aloft a large crucifix. He is the first to mount the ladder and to take his stand in front of the criminal's chair. Immediately alter follows another priest, supporting the^ condemned man, who the while repeats, ia-j a,< monotonous, intonation,., prayers < tea the dead. „ ; 'The laughter in the crowd, the babel of otatter, the/ flirting of fans, on, the instant; ceased. The woman grow deadly pale and quiver from fear -they dread to .witness what they came out to see ; and the men stand aghast. I myself feel as if I would faint. The grim excitement of suspense oppresses me, and the time from the arrival of the executioner till he dutches his victim seems hours— awful hours, fraught with agonising pity for the miserable wretch who co coon shall be sent to his eternal doom. As soon as he approaches the chair, whither he is conduoted by the priest, the executioner motions him to be seated, Ho then gently but securely pinions him to the post, his shoulders being pulled back till they touch it. He then Hinds his feet and hands The wretch is livid with fear. Each time the executioner touches him he shivers. He knows that in a few seconds all will be over. He looks pleadingly towards the cross, which the priest who bears it preß6ee to his lips. He kisses it for the last time. The bright garrotte is placed round his neck and attached to the pole. There is not a sound to be heard from the thousands which are gaping at this horrible sight. Even their breathing seems suspended for some seconds, till the supreme moment it over. Wow the executioner gets behind his victim, and. like a flash, he flings a white cloth over his head. I see him move the handles of the screw which tightens the garrotte ; then I hear a dull sound. Is it the rumble of the screw, or is it the crushing of the vertebne of the neck ? Almost simultaneously with this dull, sickening sound the victim's body shivers, Ms legs and arms move three or four times spasmodically, and then become rigid. All is over; He is dead— the murdered is a/enged, the law is satiated. At this moment, signalled by the priests, who raiee their berrettos, every ono nncovers and mutters a prayer. As soon as he has assured himself that hie victim is dead, the executioner lifts away the white cloth. Oh ! what a fearful, revolting sight. The face, which but a few minutes previously was livid and emaciated with mental pain, ia now purple and swollen. The lips are blue, the tongue swollen protrudes from the mouth, the eyes are open, glaring, bloodbliot, and leaping trom their sockets, and were it not that the body is bound to the poet by a rope round the chest, it would present a hideous spectacle presenting the appearance rather of a man hung than garrotted. A black mitre-chape cap, with a white cross on it, is then placed on the dead man's head, there he is left under the i charge of two sentinels till sunset, when a religious order like the Mirericordia of Florence, called the Congregation of Weepers come and take the body away and give it a decent burial in the cemetery where all criminals are interred, outside Madrid. ****** I returned to see this melancholy service. ! The air was balmy, night was falling, and for a time there was an awful, deathlike silence surrounding the scaffold, near which were gathered about twenty of those Weepers. Aided by an assistant executioner, the poor motionless body was loosened from the deadly grip 'of the garrotte, and laid in a pauper's coffin amid murmured prayers and low moaning' 1 , ' which seemed to my heated imagination to disturb the epectre3 of all who had been done to a judicial death on the ppot. The coffin was then placed in a funeral cart, which proceeded immediately to the burial ground, where, amid lamentations and prayer, all thtt was mortal of a wretched criminal was left in peace forever.