WESTERN VENGEANCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12534, 22 June 1901, Page 3

WESTERN VENGEANCE.

EXECUTION OP ANTI-FOREIGN CHINESE OFFICIALS. A TERRIBLE SCENE. [From Our Correspondent.] LONDON, May 17. “Scarcely a day passes new -which has not its complement of executions,” writes Mr Angus Hamilton, the war correspondent of the “ Pall Mall Gazette ” in China, from’ Pekin on March 1, in his graphic description of the beheading of the two notorious officials, CM SMu and Shi-Oheng-Yi, prominent supporter's of the anti-foreign movement, and primarily responsible for many of the metre abominable outrages perpetrated against Europeans in Pekin. The execution took place at three o’clock, in the vegetable market, which has been the execution ground since the establishment of the dynasty, and which is surrounded by shops of some pretension. The market was crowded and in an uproar; at ‘ten o’clock the people were already Standing in the neighbouring alleys, closely packed—a screaming, jabbering crowd of Celestial sight-seers. People scrambled to the roofs of the houses, conducting animated discussions with those below them, who were neither so fortunate nor so energetic. The cake-sellers sold their cakes, Chinese street-acrobats cleared spaces for their tumblings, conjurers bewildered hundreds with their- sleight-of-hand, and as one looked upon the happy, laughing gathering, it was impossible to believe that a crowd which had gathered for the purpose of watching the deaths of two .people could be so easily amused. From the beginning until the end the atmosphere of the place suggested rather . the preparation for a carnival than the elements of a funeral.. In the centre of the crowd was a small open space, which was kept clear by the efforts of a guard of thirty Americans with fixed bayonets. It was here that the execution was to take place, and here, in the centre, were two small straw mattresses, one covered with a square of red cloth, the other bearing a board hidden with black doth. It was a slight distinction., but the presence of these two mate was suffident to remove the prisoners from the ranks of common malefactors. This was the only pretence at a scaffold which the spot held, and it had been secured! by the friends of the condemned' from the executioner. A little distance from the mattresses were two common, unpainted' coffins, and that was aIL The scene was dramatic enough in its details, cheerful enough in its crowd, mournful enough in its subject. The executioner . himself was the most .animated of anybody. He stood chatting with many •friends, smoking his pipe, or posing as a subject to the 'innumerable photographers who had been attracted to the scene. His swords were lying by him—one was blood-stained and dirty, another was chipped in the blade, a third was bright and sharp,. its edge unturned, its glistening surface* unspotted. It had not been used that morning. Presently there Was a movement in the rear of the crowd, and the Chinese turned upon their heels and craned their necks as the tops of two Pekin carts could be seen threading laboriously a tiny passage through the crowd.. It was with difficulty that they advanced, but they moved slowly forward until the centre of the square was reached. It was now three o’clock, and the prisoners had come from the Board of Punishments, where their misdeeds and sentences had been read to them. A detachment of, Japanese infantry surrounded the darts, whose hoods had been drawn down in front, and Chinese officials, wearing buttons of various colours upon their hats, led them. The execution was a Chinese affair, and was carried out in the Chinese style, CM Shin was in the first cart, and as he came 0n.,t0 the. ground he peered through the little window in his cart at the thousands around him. At thin moment someone passed a letter into the cart, andtos' he read it he glanced towards the roof, and, pressing his hands togetherin the Chinese style, bowed politely., The last greeting of a friend had reached him, and his : face ’lighted up with a smile of singular sweetness and amiability. _ He was elderly in appearance, of intelligent _ expression, and a man who, by ibis bearing, seemed resigned to his inevitable end. Upon , the morning of his death he had held a levee of his friends, where he was cheerful and dignified, and where, as he drank the champagne that had' been sent him by a Japanese officer, and talked without reserve upon the punishment which ho was so soon to endure, it was impossible not to appreciate the princinles which moved him. He had stated then that he was unable to understand why the foreigners should, wish him to die. It was a point that no European would discuss at such on hour and under such circumstances, and the question was itself begged and the difficulty' saved by the happy tact of a Japanese officer, who, catching the words of his prisoner, said, “It is for the honour of China.” Ohi Shiu accepted the remark, and said noth-. ing further; but, as he was assisted from the cart, the contrast between that scene in the early morning at his house and the place of execution made one almost wish that the honour of Chin a, might be upheld in a less horrible fashion. Chi Shiu, supported by the assistants of the executioner, walked the short distance ■ wMch lay between the cart and the straw mattress. His composure -yas remarkable, and as be passed within. a few feet of many hundreds, of foreigners, ignoring the illbred persistency and coarse enterprise of the camera fiends, he looked neither to the right nor to the left' of him. As he knelt upon his mat, his neck and shoulders were hurriedly stripped of clothing, and a piece of thin string was bound round his head, ■so that the head might be dragged away when it had fallen. An assistant coiled Ms queue round his head and pressed down the shoulders until the chin was almost touching the ground, Chi Shiu was then prepared for ‘execution, and as he knelt there, his shoulders bowed down, his head outstretched, his neck bare, the horrible manner of his death was almost stupefying. A sudden silence fell upon the crowd. The executioner took Ms pipe from his lips, tapped it* upon, the- side of the - coffin, and thrust it in his girdle. He then threw- his coat from him l , and, rolling it into a ball, tossed it towards one of his assistants. As he picked up a sword, a thrill- pulsated the crowd. With Ms sword tucked under his ami, and his hands busily rolling his sleeves upwards, he slowly walked across to the mat upon which the condemned man was kneeling. His deliberation was, ghastly, and, I felt my nerves throbbing with horror, while I vainly strove to get away. At last he reached the prisoner, and stood over him. Balancing the sword in Ms hands he slowly raised it. It came down quickly, and, falling short of the neck, stopped. It was bub the preliminary measure of his stroke. Again he raised the sword; slowly it fell, never stopping—the same gradual descent, until the neck was completely severed from the body. In itself the act wa,s rapid, since the sword was so. heavy and snarp that scarce a second could have elapsed before it had forced its wav through the neck. The Headless bodv swayed for a moment, and then the shoulders sank upon the ground. The end, had come. One criminal had thus been disposed of; but the spectacle was so horrible, —indeed, the most awful thing I have seen in my life —that I again turned to fight mv way through the crowd. Long before I reached its outer edge, the almost inarticulate ejaculation of someone near me toll me that the turn of the' other had also come. In his case, Shi-Cheng-Yi had been drugged, and Ins senses had, been already numbed with opium before his death took place. His eyes were closed as th r v carried h'.m to the mat. and he was no longer conscious of the fate which was to meet him. The crowd broke up rapidly when the executions were over, and the camera fiends took a. few final snapshots of the i coffins as they were borne away hv the | «fiicia.]s, thus accentuating, to mv mind, I the horror of a depressing and degrading | upeatacle. while I am not certain that the I very depth of degradation was not reached

by the large numbers of Europeans who had gathered on the spot in pleasurable anticipation of so repulsive a sight.