HIS LAST KISS.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10710, 6 October 1928, Page 11

HIS LAST KISS.

AT) (FOOT OF GUILLOTINE.

FRENCH EXECUTION DRAMA

GIRL BARRISTER’S ORDEAL.

Dawn had just broken on the famous Sante Prison, Paris, when the gleaming knife of a guillotine crashed down twice, and, within the. space of a minute, two heads rolled into the basket. A pretty young woman stood near the towering instrument of death, with pale face and burning eyes. She stared straight ahead unflinchingly,, and not until the execution was over did she turn away, tears running down her cheeks. Behind her a huge crowd swayed with emotion. She was Mademoiselle Sonia Erlich (25), the youngest and prettiest of the 150 women practising at the French Bar. According to French law, the counsel of a man sentenced to die must be present at his execution, and -she had fought hard, but unsuccessfully, before the Assize Court for the lives of the Polish bandits Zinzuck and Pachdvsky, condemned for a series of brutal murders. It was a brave little woman who sat up all night waiting for the call, and then walked with the two men to the guillotine. She was the first of her sex to be present at an execution .in an official capacity with the task of assisting the doomed murderers in iheir last moments. Before the final act Mile. Erlich visited the bandits an the condemned cell,, where she saw their necks- shaved and the coliars of their shirts cut away.

As Zinzuck prepared for the guillotine he sang Polish hymns and urged his companion to do the same, to show they were • not afraid of ■death. They chatted gaily to their girl counsel, and Mile. Erlich spoke to them tender I}', although she looked pale and worn. Then five o’clock. tolled on the prison bell, and officials hurried the men to the guillotine.

When the two men were asked if they had anything to say, Pachovsky remaiaed silent, but Zinzuck repeated several times: “I did not kill; .1 simpfy'ffi-ed.” Then _ both confessed to a Polish heard mass, and embraced each’,, ‘other. Then they embraced Mile/ Erlich. . If, *. A MTJEDEREK’SVKISS Pachovsky was the firsSSif the two bandits to be executed. Then Zinzuck, with 'Mile. Erlich and the prison chaplain on either side of him, walked down the three steps of the prison van ladder, smoking a cigarette. “Good-bye, gentlemen,” he shouted, as he stumbled towards the guillotine less than ten paces away. Mile. Erlich kissed him on either cheek as the executioner almost tore him from her grasp. The girl wavered a moment, then braced herself and stepped to the foot of the guillotine to do her duty—that of seeing that the sentence of the Court was carried out according to the law and without a hitch. The condemned man laid his head on the block and the knife fell. As Mile. Erlich turned away she whispered to an official: “They died heroically. lam glad to have‘ done my duty by being with them at the last moment.” The execution "was m public and a huge crowd assembled during the night, pressing into the roped square around the guillotine and climbing trees and walls to get a better view. At dawn 300 taxi cabs and nearly 100 private motor carsi had arrived carrying would-be spectators from all parts of Paris. Numbers ot ■wealthy men and women had -succeeded in securing the coveted cards of admission to the enclosure reserved for journalists and officials. PiOUge sticks and powder putts made their appearance, with the first rays of sunlight. Behind them there were ■scores of women and girls m the crowd struggling to see the execution.

As justice was. -clone, strong men lifted the big wickerwork basket- containing the beads and bodies of the bandits on to a motor lorry, which dashed away with an escort of Lepublican Guards and mounted police. The bodies, which nobody claimed, •were taken to the Federal Schools and afterwards buried in the common ditch at the Ivry Cemetery. FEIGN OF TERROR. With the trial and death of the two bandits a reign of terror has ended on the outskirts of Paris and the North of France. Zmzuck and Pac.hovskv were the ringleaders and a gang o‘f twenty, bandits who committed a dozen brutal murders and scores of robberies. In E’rande are still public bv law, but as juries are so tender they are extremely rare. There was a public demand that, in view of the exceptional and bestial crimes of the two men the old method of guillotining should be resorted to as a lesson to other desperadoes