FIFTEEN HEADS FALL. WHOLESALE XECUTION AT CANTON. A Morning's Bloody Work.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 416, 2 November 1889, Page 3

FIFTEEN HEADS FALL. WHOLESALE XECUTION AT CANTON. A Morning's Bloody Work.

Hknky Norman, in a recent letter from Canton, givts the following graphic description of a wholesale execution of fifteen condemned criminals in the potter's field, of which he was on eyewitness. It is the same execution ground of which Isabella Bird gave so striking a picture in ' The Golden Chersonese,' but she did nob have the opportunity to see the bloody ami barbaric spectacle which JVJr Norman brings t ao vividly before the leader in all its ghastly horrors : I am inclined to think that nobody can claim to have an adequate and accurate appreciation of Chinese character who has not witnessed a Chinese execution. This is not difficult to do at Canton, for the Canton river swarms with pirates, and when these gentry are caught they generally get short shrift. A few bambooings, to. begin with, then several months in priaou — and it is' not necessary to explain what a Chinese j prison is— with little to eat and a< stiff' course of torture, and then one fine meriting a ' short sharp shock ' at the execution ! ground. If you care to accompany me there I will try to placo the scene before ■' you. The execution is fixed for 4,30, so at 4 o'clock the guide comes for us at yhameen, the foroign quarter of Canton, and our chairs carry us rapidly through tho nolsy^ alleys of the native city. Until we get" 1 close to the spot there is no sign of anything unusual. Then suddenly we -rum into a jammed crowd at the end of a long and particularly narrow street. The chaircoolies, however, plunge- straight into it, and it gives way before us till .we are brought up to the huge wooden gates guarded by a little group of soldiers. To hear these men talk you would suppose that they would die then and there rabhor than let us pass, but the pioduction of a couple of ten-cent pieces works a miracle and they open the gates for us, vainly trying to stop the rush of natives that follows us in and carries us before it right into the middle of the open space. It is a bare pieco of ground,' fifty yards long by a dozen wide, between two houses, whose blank walls hem it in on three sides. Today it is tho execution-ground"; yesterday and to-morrow the drying-ground of a potter who lives there. There is no platform, no roped-oft space, nothing but this bare bit of dirty ground s>o crowded with Chinese that we are forced into the middle, not more than four feet from whatever is bo take place. It is no use to try to getfaibher ofi — here we are and here we must stop. Suddenly the gate 3 are thrown , open again, and, welcomed by a howl of delight from the crowd, a strange and ghastly procession comes tumbling in. First a few ragamuffin soldiers, making -a|tine prebence, of clearing the way ; then a tile of coolies carrying the victims in small, shallow baskets slung to bamboo poles. '.As soon as each pair reach the middle of tho space they stoop and pitch their living buideni out and run off. The prisoners are chained . hand and foot, and are perfectly helpless. The executioner standt by and points out wheie each load is to be dumped. Ho is dressed exactly like any othercoolie present, , without any badge of olHce whatever. .The' condemned men have each a long folded 1 piece of paper in a split bam boo stuck ' .into their pigtail, upon which is written their crime and the warrant of execution. One after another they arrive and are slung out. Will tho procession never end ?.. How many can there be? This is^more, than T bargained for. ' At last oxer the heads of the crowd «c' seethe hats of two petty mandarins, and behind them the gates are shut. The bale of men is fifteen, and the executioner has arranged them in two rows about two yards, apart and all facing one way. All except one seem perfectly callous* and he had probably been drugged with opium, a last' which the prisoner's friends can "Always obtain by bribery. They exchange remarks, 3ome of them evidently chaff with the spectators, and one man was cairied in singing and kept up his ptrain almost to the last. The executioners— theie are now two of them — step forward. The younger tucks up hi.* trousers and sleeves and deliberately selects a sword from several lying close by, I while the other, an elder man, collects the; strips of paper ioto a sheaf and lays them on one side. Then he places himself behind the front man of the nearest row and takes him by the shoulders. The younger man walks forward and stands at the loft of tho kneeling man. The fatal moment has come. There han instant's hush and every one- of the two rowa of condemned men behind bwisbs his head round and cranes his neck to see. I • will nob attempt to describe the emotions of such a moment — tho horror, the awful repulsion, the wish that you had never 1 come, the sickening fear that you will bo ' splashed with tho blood, and ycb the helploss fascination bhab keeps your eyes glued to every detail. The knife is raised. It is a short, broad-bladed, two-handed swoid, weighed at the back and evidently ns sharp as a razor. For a second it is poised in the air, as the executioner takes aim. Then it falls. There is no great apparent eflbrb. Ibsimply falls, and, moreover, seems to fall slowly. But when it comes to the man's neck it does nob stop, it keeps on falling. With ghastly slowness it passes right through bhe flesh, and you are only recalled from your momentary sbupor when the' head springs forward and rolls over and over, while for a fraction of a second twp.. dazzling jets of scarlet blood burst out and fall in a graceful curve to the ground. Then the great rush of blood comes and floods the spot. As soon as the blow has fallen the second executioner pitches the body forward with a loud ' Hough ;' it tumbles in a shapeless heap, t and fcpm every throat goes up a loud ♦ Ho,' expressive of pleasure and approval of the stroke. Bub there is no pau&e, the executioner steps overthecorpsetothefrontmanof the second rank, tbe knife rises, it falls, another head rolls away, another double burst of blood follows it, the headless body is shoved forward, the assistant shouts 4 Hough ' and the crowd shouts ♦ Ho.' Two men are dead. Then the hesdsmen steps back to the second man of the front row and the operation is repeated. Two things strike you — the brutal matter- of -factness of the whole performance and the extraordinary ease with which a human head can be chopped off. As a whole, it is precisely like a "drove of pigs driven into the shambles and stuck ; and in detail ifc is — or seems — no more difficult than splitting a turnip with a carving-knife or lopping off a thistle with a cane. Chop, chop, chop, the heads roll off one after the other in as many seconds. When the seventh man is reached, either because the knife is blunted or the executioner misses his blow, the neck is only half cut through. Bub still he does not stop. He comes quickly back, takes another knife, passes on to the next man, and only comes back to finish the wretched seventh when all tho other heads are lying in bloody 'pools in front of the shoulders which carried them a few moments before.

And everyman has, watched the death of all those in front ot him with a horrible , animal-like curiosity and then bent his own neck to the knife. . The place is ankle deep in blood, the spectators are yelling with delight and . frenzy, tho heads are like bowls on a green, the horrible headless bodies are lying all about in grotesque attitudes, the executioner is scarlet to the knees and his 'hands are dripping. Take my word for it that by this time you are feeling very sick.