THE GUILLOTINE. How Executions are Managed in France.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 419, 19 October 1889, Page 3

THE GUILLOTINE. How Executions are Managed in France.

Heads Gut Off tn a Very Busi-ness-like Way. I have witnessed a French execution from hock to soda and can tell plain truths of the head&man and his assistants, and one of the terrible drama which, for on c man, at least, lasts altogether too short a time. It was years ago when I saw my hrst one. An absistant to ' Monsieur de Paris' promised to let me know, and, at last, after several days' of uncertainty, he ?aw from where he had been watching the messengor of death, the bearer of the letter telling the head-man that the execution was fixed for the following morning. 'If I don't come back soon,' he^said to his wife, 'you will know that it js all right and that T am with the chief,' and soon there were fiye of us together. While it was still day they went to take a last turn in the Rue de laFolie Res:nault, where the machine was, kept. There they separated, making an appointment for 11 o'clock for supper. At table they, talked ot the execution about to take place, of pa3t ones, and of their

Blood -Stained Garments. These assistants are obliged to wear frock coats and tall hats, though time was when they appeared in evening dress like undertakers' men. They reminded each other of the day when there were three executions one after another, of the woman who was guillotined protesting her innocence, and of the one who had been brought to the scaffold really dead- from fear,

and, whom they had decapitated all the same so as not to bring her back to the prison, " there would 'have been suchan ado about it." At 1 o'clock in ' the morning we were on' and at last we arrived at the Place de la'Roquette, where our advent was greeted by a murmur of curiosity by several reporters and a te(v wellknown individuals, as, for instance, ' two fast women dressed in men's clothes, females not being allowed to be present at executions. In the middle of the road I noticed five stones; these formerly supported the raised scaHold, up which thirteen steps led, but nowadays the machine rests simply on 1 che ground.

i Adjusting the In^trumem 1 . An assistant fixed the baeeof the machine with the aid of a water-level, because th© posts must be quite, vertical, so that the knife -the ' cutter,' these gentlemen call it —may fall witn all its weight and swiftly. First of all the assistants took off their frock Coats and put on blue blouses, like those worn by cattle dealers ; then they took the machine out of the 1 waggon and mounted it piece by piece, slowly, silently and surely, and when ah was tinished there ' remained two hours,, to pass — waiting for the num. ' i " ' Tune was finally called, however, and in another half hour all would be over. They went into the gaol, all except the fellow who remained to guard the machine, and he was very proud of his mission. Just think, bhe attention of the public,, which a lew minutes before was divided among five, was now all centred on him alone, and very likely he looked at the machine with a knowing air, touching it, here and there as if he were arranging something chat had been forgotten, moved the bucket of water placed at the foot of the po3t, took out the sponge and willingly answered questions. In the meantime the condemned fellow was brought into bhe outer court ot the prison, where tho executioner and three assistants were waiting for him.

The Preliminaries T-hey seized him, seated him on a stool, and proceeded to bind his limbs. All this was done silently ; when the man spoke they did not answer him— rfor them he no longer existed — and only pulled the cords tighter and tighter. The 'cold scis-or& cub olf his hair, glided along the neck and clipped away the shirt collar just fifteen centimetres below where the knife woald strike in a few minutes. ' Monsieur de Paris ' signed the book and gave a receipt tor the criminal, which served as a certificate of death also. The assistants rubbed their hands, and two of them took hold of the condemned, whose legs were shackled by a- stout cord. The prison door was open, a cry came up from the public, to which those who were supporting the condemned responded by tightening their hold ot him.

Very Quick Work. There was a moment's pause : it was the farewell between the condemned and his confessor. One of the assistants stood before the lunette waiting for the man's, head to be passed in ; he seized it by the hair, the executioner wa" at the button, he gave the .*ignal by a look, two- assistants slide the victim on the see-saw board toward the gaping lunette ; with all his force and weight the man to the left held the condemned in che machine while another seized his feet. YVMth four fingers o£> the right hand the executioner rapidly , lowered the upper half of the lunette on to the neck, at which he elanbed quickly; and by a movement ot hfs lei*t hand fct fall the knife, which with a whisking ' .sound, passed throtteh the vertebra, cuVttirigv ! ;it like a thiead, and the "assistant 'bhre'w'the head into a long basket. , At the same time two other assistants threw the body into the same leceptacle, and then it 'was shut up and hbiated into one'ot the waggons, which left immediately. The blood was washed away, the sergeants de ville cleared the, place and soon it was completely empty.