Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1895-01-18
DECAPITATIONS In CHINA.
HOW CONvICTS ARE BEHEADED
ACCORDING TO CHINESE Law.

eOSSAs~~~SN ~ OAAAXN AS0xS LA W.
Sign OF the Red Cross-Formidabl
Sword Welded by the Execution
cr-Strangling Prisoner.
HHE execution of the two
Japanese spies whom we
Americans delivered up to
the Chinese, and the decapi-
tatioD of man.of.war's captain ac-
cused OF cowardioe in the seq fight off
Ping Yang, we're recent notable in
stances of the use of the headsman's
sword here IN China, writes Julian
Ralph in Harper's Weekly. There
have been other beheadings, for Of
fences growing out of the war and for
the ordinary criminal offences, and
these have lent new interest to the
subject, even to foreigners resident in
China, who frequently read of such
punishment, but seldom witness them
or hear them described. I have been
30 fortunate as to fall in with dis
tinguished European who witnessed
the legal slaughter of number of
criminals in Pekin. The account he
has given me of what he saw is so un-
like the popular idea of the methods
of justice here that I have written
down the substance of it.
''The official on duty on the morn
ing of which I speak, having reached
the mat shed, clothed in all the glory
of mandarin's dress-button, neck.
lace, breast-cloth, and all-ordersi
the men brought before him one by
one. The law says that in such cases
the condemned men shall admit their
guilt, and ask that punishment be no
longer deferred. Like almost all good
law and almost all good logic in China,
this regulation is turned into nero
ceremony and pretence. The prison
ers neither say nor do anything, but n
man who stands behind each one
pushes him over, bumps his head on
the ground and says, 'Yow.' This
word, or one with that sound, means
Il want, and the presiding mandarin
understands it to have been uttered by
the prisoner, and to mean, Il want to
be punished. While the official ticks
off the mans name upon the list be-
fore him, the man is pressed down
upon the ground and red cross is
painted on his neck. This is done in
order that the right head may be fitted
upon the right body afterwards, if
proof of the mans death is required
for official entry.
''The prisoner thus painted is pulled
away to the execution ground, where
the headsman is heating his swords in
a great caldron of hot water. The
swords are rather more like knives
than swords. Each is yard in
length, half an inch thick at the edge,
and an inch and half or two inches
thick at the back. If you should weld
together nine or ten of our heaviest
axes, one laid beyond the other, you
would make something like one OF
these knives. The victim is laid upon
his face, and his legs are tied together.
A long piece of whip-cord is looped
under the mans jaw and tied into his
pigtail. So much of its free end is
left that two men go off with it to q
distance and pull on it with all their
might, while third one sits on the
condemned mans back. The execu-
toner seizes knife and stands over
the victim, whose neck is seen to pull
out-and out-and out. The knife
falls, the head is severed, and fre-
quently the men who are pulling the
whip-cord fall backward and roll half
over, like tumblers in circus. The
executioner picks up the head and
holds it towards the mandarin, who
looks at it carelessly aud calmly, and
makes mark upon the tally list in
front of him, I was less stolid than
he, especially when, happening to
glance at one of the heads, saw it
open its mouth just as it was held up
to the mandarin's view. It was then
placed beside the body, and the next
felon was brought out and treated in
the same way.
''Two or three prisoners were to be
strangled on this occasion, and though
] went away twice. from sheer inabil-
ity to witness their execution, was
urged back by friend who accom-
panied me, and thus I saw enough to
be able to describe, that mode of pun
ishment also. The executioner tied
short bit of whip-cord around each
mans throat, and then putting stick
of wood in the slack of the cord at the
back of the neck, turned the stick and
frightened the cord untilit was evident
that it could not be made tighter.
For some reason he Immediately
loosened the cord lin each case, others
said), and then frightened it again and
fastened it. The victims made no
sound, but culver passed over their
bodies, and their fingers we're seen to
curl in as if their fists were being
clinched. That was oil. The man
DARN sent clerk to check off the
names of these victims. and thus the