A HORRIBLE PUNISHMENT

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1549, 1 December 1883, Page 2

A HORRIBLE PUNISHMENT

A correspondent of the "Philadelphia Press" describes a horrible Hindoo mode of punishment, The bamboo plant grows with wonderful rapidity in a tropical climate. That fact did not escape the notice of Hindoo tyrants, Sharpening a bamboo shoot, and planting it in the earth with tho sharp end upward, they would order the victim to bo led up to it. Looking around, he would see no instrument of death near by, and feel relioved perhaps that his life was to bo sparod, Ilia torturers would congratulate him, and ask him to be seated on the earth. He would obey. They would place his body immediately above the concealed bamboo shoot, and then tie him down by stakes so that he could not move, As night wore on, tho victim would realise his fate. He would find that slowly, but wi l ,h terriblo certainty the bamboo was growing up into his body He was generally left to his fate, Growing at the rate at two or three inches a night, the shar]-pointed shoot would finally put an end to his sufferings by. penetrating a vital part. But before this took place what an eternity of agony tho poor wretch must have passed through I It is impossible to conceive what the sufferings of ono so tortured must have beon, with that bamboo shoot slowly and inexorably growing through his living body. Fortunately, before the end came, complete insanity generally obscured the consciousness of tho sufferer,