EXECUTIONS AT CANTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12991, 7 October 1905, Page 2 (Supplement)

EXECUTIONS AT CANTON.

A fORitF.sPONDE.vr of the Hongkong Daily Press writes:"As a result of a pamphlet written by Chev. Z. Volpic&lli, the Italian Consul st Hongkong, pointing out the uselessness of torturing prisoners till they make false confessions, etc., an order has been received from Pelcin not to decapitate prisoners sentenced to death save in Very exceptional cases, but. to resort to strangulation. Up to the present such a mode of execution was reserved for officials of more than one button who had been, sentenced to death, and then it Was entered in the official records as 'So-and-so was presented with a silk cord with which to commit suicide,' but the man was strangled by his keepers, nevertheless. "Several men were' executed under the new rules recently, and another, whose crime, that of supplying arms and ammunition to the Kwangsi rebels, was considered of a more serious character, had his head chopped off according to 'old' custom. The men who wore, strangled were first of all tied to crosses, arid then cords about their necks were screwed up tight. Of the. two I should say that this strangulation was the slower and more barbarous way of putting a man out of existence. "A large audience turned out to see the 'new fashion,' several Europeans being amongst the crowd. As soon as the affair was over one of the Europeans immediately stepped into the ring to bargain with the No. 1 executioner for the cords he had used. It' is really too bad that while some Europeans are writing against these public executions, others and innumerable tourists and globe-trotters should be encouraging them ; aiid fa.ncy, for instance, the indelicacy of a 'lady' taking snapshots of such things. "1 know of one instance of a tourist bribing the executioner to hold his sword in air, above the condemned man's head, for three seconds so that a clear picture might be secured. It was a gruesome sight; and after the execution the blood-bespatter-ed tourist secured the executioner's sword, even preventing him from wiping it."