CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN GERMANY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1414, 26 June 1883, Page 2

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN GERMANY.

. Capital sentences; are seldom carried out in Germany; not that murders are not committed there often enough; but the warrior Emperorhas a antipathy to the infliction of the death penalty. The office of finisher of the law is almost a sinecure, although the mode in-which that functionary K&tb perform the fatal operation is 1 that demands a skill only to be acquired by long practice. He has to behead his . victim. The charitable presumption is that he trains f<fr the task by chopping' logs of .wood., The miscreant .vh^, suffered in Berlin on Mondays April 8, richly deserved his fate; but was it merciful to keep him '■ lingering- ift -'the condemned cell for six woeful months of suspense | It is to bo 'hoped the sight was not' bo brutal and -so revolt ing as that which was presented at the last dec^>ltatioa ; 'ih a year ago. ' When the criminal 1 laid ' his head upon the block the executioner' was so nervous, from: heavy drinking on the previous day, that 'he afcru«k him across both shoulders " first 1 ) wrenched the axe out; of [the wfcund then struck him'high on ; the occiput,, and only succeeded in cutting through, the neck at the third attempt, Such was the revulsion of; sentiment at the: disgraceful spectacle that, the Minister of Justice brought in a Bill substituing the guillotine as .an, instmment'.Jof) death, and ordined that there should be no more public executions.—' Standard.' . ; ij