Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1862-08-05

Execution Of Rebel Prisoners i'm China
ReOFrIbie AtrOcitses-Euginnd ResPO1si-
bic Therefor.
The following account Of the brutalities com
mitted on the Tsepings by the Imperialists is
from the pen of an Englshman who was pres
ent, in company with both English and French
officers and soldiers, at the execution By disem-
boweling Of Tapping prisoners
l went with the crowd to see the execution Of
the Iaeping prisoners that had been given up
/ for execution into the hands of the mandarins
/ by the English and French authorities or, what
IS the same thing, they took no measures to pre-
| vent the ruthless butchery of those they lent
their aid to capture, when, horror of horrors,
/ how am to describe the dreadful scene. or will
1t ever leave my memory Among these
wretches were young and old of both sexes, and
OF all ages and sizes, from the infant recently
porn TO the man of eighty, tottering on his staff
| rom the encleHte woman to the young maiden
from ten to eighteen. The latter were pushed
cut by the guards among the crowds of ruffians
assembled, aud were taken into the sheds and
by places and debauched and again dragged
back by the hair of the head to the Chinese
guards, to await their turn for execution. Some
Of them had tainted, and were pulled along the
ground to the executiOneTs, who threw them on
their backs tore of their clothes and ripped
tnein Ifom the lower part of the abdomen to their
breasts, which were cut off and dashed with
curse in their faces. The bowels, as a matter of
course, gushed out; but the cut was made in
such way, and so skillfuliy and with such ex- /
pertness, that the intestines were seldom injured
After long time in this state of excessive toy
ture, the execUtioneT thrust his hand into tie /
chest and tore out the rocking heart, his victim
looking him in the face all the while. A young |
female, apparently about elght months pregnant |
who never uttered gTOan or sigh at all the pre-
vious cruelties she had endured from the sur /
rounding mob, had her infant cut out of her /
womb, and held up in her sight by one of its /
little hSnds, bleeding and quiveringi when at
the sight she gave one heartTendiDg, piercing 4
screech, that would have awakened pity ia |
tiger, and, after it had been in that state dashed
on her breast she, with last superhumau effort,
released her arms from those holding her down,
and clasped her infant to her bleeding heart and
died, holdiag it there with such force that they
could not be separated, and were thus thrown
together on pile Of other csrcasses.
Another young woman among the prisoners
awaiting heE turn to be disemboWeled, with a
fine boy Of ten months old, Growing and Jump
ing in her arms, had him suatched suddenly
away from her, and flung to the execuioner,
who plunged the ruthless knife into her tender
breast before the mothers eyes. Infants bat
recently born were tCTl from their mothers /
breast and disamboweled before their faces
Young, strong men were disembOwled, nutilated
and the paris cut of thTustintO their own mouths
or flung among the admiIing and laughing
crowd OF Cinnamon. But no more, I can write
no more of these scenes l can now only regret
forever that looked on the dreadful sight l
am no longer fit to be a soldier. l have been in
many battles during the last twenty years, and
in the thickest of the fight in most Of them,
whore the rage and thirst for carnage is dreadful
to reflect on afterwards but nothing heretofore
that have seen or heard Of, or even read Of
could be compared to the dreadful cruelty of
his disemboweling execution. May God for
give England for the part she is taking in this
war, and may the sin of the enormities she has
assisted in perpetrsting on the defenceless wo-
nan, and innocent and helpless child, be re-
moved from her door; and after the treatment
English women and children met with from the
hands of the blacks in the Sepoy mutiny, it is
Tuly wonderful that EngIishmen should Join in
,r coUntenauce similar atrocities here 1t is
low ascertained to certainty that B and
lis companions, altar having been tortured in
'Yery way that Chinese ingenuity and cruelty
'ould devise, were afterwards mutiisted and dis
'mboweled by the Imperialists; and for that
eason the Chinese authorities would not pro-
luce their dead bodies. Poor F., who came
With me to see the execution, fell down in a
ainting it. and was in that state carried away,
nd is now rsving maniac from the effects the
lreadIul sight had on him"