Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-08-08
DECAP|TAT|0N IN PARIS
Execution of DuChemin Is
First in Ten Years.
PUBLIC DID NOT SEE 1T
Guillotine Erected in Darkness and
Without Hammer Sound.
KNIFE FALLS IN Is SECONDS
Spectacle Robbed of Horror by
Swiftness and Insensibility of
Condemned Man.
KNIFE FALLS IN Is SECONDS
Special Cablegram to The Star.

Special Cablegram to The Star.
PARIS, August THE French mind be-
ing pre-eminently logical it is difficult to
believe that it will not demand change
in the method of carrying out executions.
The law demands that they be publicly
performed in a public place. In practice
no member of the public, strictly speak
ing, saw anything of the execution of
Duchemin Thursday morning, the only
eye-witnesses being 15O journalists, a
dozen mounted gendarmes and twenty
policemen.
The difficulty in finding place for the
guillotine since the Roquette prison was
pulled down has always been offered as
an excuse for the practical abolition of
capital punishment which Paris has en-
joyed or suffered for the last ten years.
That this difficulty does not exist was
shown Thursday, when the guillotine was
erected at the middle of the 3UU-yard wall
Of the Sante prison.
1t stood in the center of four chestnut
trees belonging to the double line OF trees
that border the Boulevard Aragi. Oppo-
site this wall are the grounds of huge
unoccupied convent, SO that nothing over
looked the spot.
Troops Guard Condemned Man.
The only drawback was that there is
no door to the prison on this side. There
fore the condemned man, leaving by a
door Sante street at right angles to
the Boulevard Aragi, was driven some
seventy yards along this street and then
15O yards to the place of death.
Some 200 troops were on duty barring
no ~i,nr In
and sometimes triple cordons, both on
foot and on horseback, fifty yards apart,
assured that nobody approached except
those possessing police pass.
At about 3:45 O'Clock Deibler's men be-
gan erecting the guillotine. Silently,
without the sound of a hammer without
spoken word of command being given,
1t was put together by the light of a
candle Pickering in an old-time lantern.
That light only was used when Deibler
wished TO test the machine with water
level Everything was exact.
In an hours time one of the execution
er'S assistants blew out the candle. All
was ready. The knife was run up to the
top of the frame, but no test drop was
made, SO confident was Debler In his men
and the machine.
1t was now dawn of perfect summer
day. AS the sun rose it revealed the
maroon colored woods of Justice Its
position among the trees robbed it of
much of its terrors.
Insensibility of Victim.
Shortly before. ) o'clock, when il was
daylight. the prison van came around
the corner up the boulevard and stop
ped opposite the guillotine. Two men
let down the back. which formed steps
from the vehicle, down which came,
first. the prison governor. then "A priest
and then a figure. which might have
been Lazarus coming from the grave at
ChriSts command.
1t has it's hands fastened behind its
back and a loose covering hanging from
the shoulders. The body was naked ex-
cept for pair of linen trousers.
Over the face hung a black veil, thin
enough to allow the features to be Wis
IDLE. For the code enacts that parri-
cides must be taken to the scaffold In
bare feet and with a yelled head.
Duchemin was tWenty-eight years
old. but the livid face might have been
that of a man of any age over sixty.
1t was the face of man without con-
seriousness or feelings of any kind. for
whom assuredly the bitterness of death
had already passed.
Within fifteen seconds from the time
the prison van stopped. the knife had
fallen. This speed seems Incredible, but
your correspondent took the time by a
stop watch.
Work of Few Seconds.
In those fifteen seconds Deibler's aids
seized the cloak and veil, conducted the
condemned man three PAGES between the
van and the machine, laid him in place.
the knife fell and the body was pushed
into basket. How such perfection
can be attained when the men have so
little practice on living subjects is lit
tie short of marvellous.
This speed combined with the evil
dent insenSibility Of the doomed man,
robbed the spectacle of its horrors. 1t
had more resemblance to a clever per-
formance of the disappearing-lady act
OF the music halls than to tragedy of
death
For those who were watching within
three yards the work of setting up the
dread machine in the darkness and ST.
lence will remain a memory long after
the recollection of the actual execution
has faded away.
Nothing There.