The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1891-07-17
MOHAMMEDAN JUSTICE.
Stoning to Death Still Practiced
Among the Afghans.
The Terrible Punishment Melted Out to
Crimlnai-Pelted with stones
y a Howline and Pitt
less Mob.

AN eye for an eye and tooth for
tooth" The dictum of the old law
still holds good in Afghanistan. In
fact, the manners. customs and sur
roundings of the Afghans of to-day
might be prototyped in the pages of the
Old Testament as faithfully as the life
of the Israelites.
The Afghans are Mohammedans, IL is
true, but their religion Is built on old
law lines, and their social life is as
simple and patriarchal when the
great lawgiver, Moses, ruled the des-
TIMES of the people of Israel.
For in Afghanistan of to-day oxen
tread out the corn and plow the fields,
and the plow itself is a counterpart of
the Mosaical instrument. Corn is
ground in hand mills, and a goatskin
serves as water bottle"
Household and farming utensils have
changed nothing during the centuries
that have elapsed since the Israelites
tramped the desert by the Red sea. In
short, you could find a series of
''tableaux vivants" in the surroundings
of Afghanistan to-day to fill mp chapter
by chapter the scenes depicted in the
Old Testament.
1t is said that the Afghans are of the
lost tribes, and certainly as far as a
dogged adherence to Israelitish customs
is concerned, they might be.
There is no mistaking the Mosaical
parallel as far as the social customs
present themselves; but / was aston
ished one evening, says a writer in the
Sheffield Telegraph, during the Russian
scare, when / was on the Afghan
frontier, to see the very similitude of the
old law punishment of stoning to death
put in practice.
A yelling mob of people came rush-
ing from all directions towards the out
skirts of the village of Puclsta, picking
up pieces of stone by the way and pill
ing them up in little heaps by their feet.
L thought at the time they We're going TO
have a pitched battle with stones as
missiles. But shortly a man came
rushing forward, followed by a splitting,
hooting mob, shouting: Sag. Sag"
(dog! dogD
The unfortunate runaway evidently
knew his fate, for his long. earnest ap-
peal to Heaven as he stopped short and
threw his arms up was but the preliIni-
nary to his fateful fate-his final appeal
for mercy on his soul, for from that
pect none.
The man had scarcely time to finish
his invocation, when from all direc-
tions a literal shower of stones fell on
him. For moment he swayed to and
fro under the onslaught. Soon the ter
rible shower had battered him into
jcllicd, blood-bcspattered mass, his
very clothes showing rents through
which the blood found vent and spurtcd
freely. He wavered for moment, with
his chin DobbIng his cnesJ, and then,
after doubling up at the knees and mid
die, fell in heap dead
Still the howling mob continued their
terrible fusilladc of stones until around
the already lifeless body cairn was
formed. completely covering in the
corpse. And then the mob clapped
their hands, crowed, and went their
way.
That dog is done for said they.
Done for, Yes. IL was a terrible do
ing; for there. under the heap of stones,
the mans nerves and muscles still Vi
brated in their post-death struggle,
causing the stone heap to rise and fall
rs if in labor with thing of life: rose
and fell in their horrible parturition
for few moments until the twitching
of nerve and muscle ceased, and all
was still. ''consumnatum est" The
murderer of Afghanistan has breathed
his last, and his hic jacet is written
around the tombstone in those blood
marks that bespatter the ground about
his grave cairn-