AN EXECUTION IN COREA.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 2, Issue 118, 6 March 1895, Page 3

AN EXECUTION IN COREA.

The Corean married men—and in Corea it may be said that 99 per cent of the men are married—keep the liair tied in a knot over the head. Each of the men to bo beheaded had a straw rope tied to his top-knot and was in this way held fast in position over the stool. Their arms were tied behind their back and no chance was given them of moving while the executioner was at work. Upon one of the men, who offered a violent resistance, several soldiers sprang, and handled him with the utmost brutality, the result being tl: at, in the course' of his desperate light against death, his spine, which, owing to his arms being tied behind his back, was at full tension, and broken in two.. Two of the other men had part of the shoulder cut off, and when tho writer afterwards examined the several bodies it was plain that many blows had fallen wide of the mark. After tho work of destruction had been completed and tho safety of the kingdom once more secured, executioner and soldiers, satisfied with their work, gaily retraced their steps to tho nearest wineshop, where the rest of the night was spent in an orgy of food and drink. The bodies were left for leopards, dogs and crows to feed upon, and none of the Coreans dared to go uear them —firstly because they feared that the spirits of the departed might play them some malevolent trick ; and, secondly, because if seen near tho bodies of tho outlaws, tho probability was that they would bo taken for their associates, and would meet a similar fate. Though tlio high road was but a few hundred yards from tho place where tho execution took place, tho superstitious Coreans preferred going miles out of their way over the ' hills rather than pass near tho spot Where so many men had lost their ' lives. Tho whole of the next day was spent by tho writer in sketching tho 1 dead bodies, and tho ghastly expres- 1 sions that death had imprinted on the i men's faces. They did not make pretty ' sketches.', but then one seldom gets a 1 chance of portraying sueh a scene in ' black and white.