The Sun. — 1845-09-30 (London, England)

EXECUTION AT GENOA. Went to the mole, wishing to see what preparations had been made l'or the execution. but was refused admittance at the gates. I th,n took a boat and went on board the Emulous, an Eeglah schooner, lying near the mule, and at a short distance from the gallows. Ahout4 noon the two criminals arrived on foot, escorted by a.' procession of officers of justice, monks, and others, with a banner, crucifix, &e. The gallows was very low, and had no drop nor stage, but a strong wide ladder was placed against the cross-beam. The executioner was a tall, powerful man, very well and neatly dressed, with his hair n:cely arranged, appearing somewhat like a respectable servant in half livery. Ile mounted the ladder first, and one of the criminals, apparently without any compulsion, followed behind him, caressed in shabby, dirty clothes, with no cap or other covering for his head or face. Ilis arms were closely pinioned to his side. When the executioner had attached the halter, previously placed round the criminal's nook, to the hook, with a smitten thrust, be pushed him uff the ladder, and supportiog hives if by the beam, he stood on the neck and thouLters of his victim, jumping, stamping, and Lending the head sideways as much as possible, while one or two assist,nts below forcibly at his legs. The ,Aretehud man appeared to be quite dead in less than halt' a minute.  The execution of the second ho was treated in the same manner, was a still more horrid spectacle, for he was dragged up the ladder, step by step, by main force, by the executioner and his leen ; and his terror must have be n inereas, d, if possible, by seeing the ghastly corpse of his companion dangling above him. In another minute lie was iiiinself a corpse hanging by his side. A itanthonie bell-led priest then motin:ed the ladder, and made a .1.11011 address to the spectators, exhorting them (as I r..as intbirned, for I was at too great a distance to bear his words) to take warning by the fate of the criminals. Not more than 200 or 300 persons were admitted on the mole. The greater part of the spectators were in boats, or in the vessels in the ha:baur, and among them all I could not see more than about twenty women, who were chiefly quite of the lower orders. The assembly behaved quietly, but showed great indifference, and even levity. The bodies of the criminals remained on the gallows till half-past five in the afternoon. and the spot was visited by thousands, the mole being even to the public as usual. They were natives of 'Savona. They had been notoriously bad characters, and one of them had been a thief from the age of five years, at which time he was in the habit of cutting off the leaden weights from the fishermen's nets when they were spread out to dry on the shore. The crime for which they suffered was a murder of the worst description. They had gone to the house of a priest in Genoa, and finding from the servant that her master was out, and would not return for some time, they murdered her by strangling her with their own hands; after which they had brutally disfigured the body. They had then plundered the house of some plate and other articles of value. They both made a confessii.n of th. it guilt. This method of executing criminals, though really quite as humane as thatadopted in England, and perhaps more so, appears ye. y barbarous and uncivilised, and the spectacle is rendered infinitely more horrid by the face being exposed. The rolling eyes, the protruded tongue, the features, purple and distorted in the death agony of strangulation, and with that • lideous expression upon them becoming gradually fixed and rigid, form a spectacle, the horrors of which can neither be described by those who have witnessed it, nor conceived by those who have not. But the advocates for capital punishments and public executions say that the example is useful in deterring others from committing crime. If so, the Genoese are more rational than the English, because, without increasing.' the sufferings of the criminal, they make that example as effective and horrible as possible. And the ads dress of the priest, standing on the ladder by the side of the scarcely lifeless bodies, and speaking to an asseu!'uly, every individual of which, however depraved, urust, for a short time at least, be in a serious mood, might be made, if well managed, a very solnin and impressive part of this dreadful ceremony.•-_(From an Eye Witness.)