The St. Johns herald., 1893-03-30
MOHAMMEDAN JUSTICE.
Stoning to Death Still Practiced
 Among the Afghans-
The Terrible Punishment Meted Out to . Criminal-Pelted with Stones bya Rowling and Piti-
 less Mob.

''An eye for an eye and tooth for a 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, it is true, but their religion is built on old law lines, and their social life is as simple and patriarchal as when the great lswgiver, Moses, ruled the des- tinies of the people of Israel.
 For in Afghanistan of to-day oxen tread out the corn and blow the fields, and the blow itself is counterpart of the Mosaical instrument. Corn is ground in hand mills, and 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 up chapter by chapter the scenes depicted in the Old Testament.
 It 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 I 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 Puckta, picking up pieces of stone by the way and pill ing them up in little heaps by their feet. thought at the time they were going to have a pitched battle with stones as missiles. But shortly 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 prelimi- nary to his fateful fate-his final appeal for mercy on his soul, for from that bowling mob he well knew he need ex- pect none. ..1>js-@-
 The man had scarcely time to finish his invocation, when from all direc- tions 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 jellied, blood-bespattered mass, his very clothes showing rents through which the blood found vent and spurted freely. He wavered for moment, with his chin bobbing his chest, and then, after doubling up at the knees and mid dle, fell in a heap dead.
 Still the bowling mob continued their terrible fusillade 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, it was terrible do- ing; for there, under the heap of stones, the mans nerves and muscles still vii brated in their post-death struggle, causing the stone heap to rise and fall as 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, 'consummatum 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.