The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1922-04-22
REEVES WAR
ON eunL0T|NE
Landau Execution Cause of Re-
neWed Agitation INF rance.
HAS OPERATED $50 YEARS
Abolition Of Capital Punishment or
That GuilIotining Take Place in Pri-
vate, Is Being Demanded-Man
Whose Name 1t Bears Had Nothing
to Do With the Construction Of the
Sinister Claimed Many
Victims During the tuition.

Through the publicity given to the
Landru execution, notice has again
been attracted to the guillotine, and
the Socialist papers, of which there
are number in Paris, are demanding
abolition of capital punishment or that
guillotinings take place in the privacy
Of prison.
In fact the public is not admitted
to executions, except when there is
laxity on the part of the local Off
Gals, the publicity being due to the
presence of reporters. 1t is urged that
reporters should not be required to
attend such. functions, as the public
would accept as accurate any prison
governors announcement that a man
had been guillotined without assurance
by newspaper men.
Operates 100 Years.
In a few weeks the guillotine will
have operated for 100 years in
France. Before the Revolution, con-
demned persons We're put to death in
various ways. In some cases bones
were broken by blows from an iron
bar. Others were made to die in
agony on the wheel. Many mobiles
were decapitated with the sword. The
majority, however, were hanged In
1880, humanitarian, Doctor Guillo-
tin, procured the issuance of decree
that a criminal should be decapitated
by simple machine with a knife,
(which should fall like the thunder"
Actually, Guillotin, who was a profess
sor Of anatomy in the Paris School of
Medicine had nothing to do with the
construction Of the sinister machine
and he died of chagrin because his
name was given to it.
A German harpsichord maker
named Schmidt built the first guillo-
tine under the direction of Doctor
Louis, secretary of the Academy Of
Surgery. Louis XVI, who sEfided him
self on his skill as locksmith and
his knowledge of mechanics, is said
to have advised the adoption of the tri-
angular form of knife instead of the
scythe-shape of the original design
This story of the king, who was sub
sequently to lose his head on the gull
lotine,2 is discredited in many quar-
tiers, although it appears in the
Memoirs" of Samson, one of the great
hangmen. D.
Crowds in First.
To the first guillotining, which took
place in 1892 on the Place de Greve,
the people of Paris thronged in
crowds. At the swift end of Nicholas
Pelletier, footpad who had robbed
and stabbed to death a traveller, they
clapped their hands with satisfaction.
After that the guillotine was kept
busy. From August, 1892, to July,
1894, 1882 persons were beheaded, in
Guiding 1874 women.
In recent years the amount of gull
lctining has largely depended on the
personal views of the President of the
moment. Thirty years ago President
Carnot executed everybody who had
been sentenced to death. Then Presi-
dent Fallieres went to the other ex-
IRENE, being opposed to guillotining
anybody. This led to an outcry, in
consequence of which criminals guilty
of particularly brutal murders escaped
the penalty. From 1912 the death ma
chine has worked with regularity.
But there has always been latent
hostility and the Landru case has
brought it to the surface In addition
to the cry for abolition of capital pun
ishment there is demand for cert
tude that a man is guilty before being
beheaded, and in Landru's case GER