SCENE AT A TRIPLE EXECUTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 1248, 30 October 1875, Page 2

SCENE AT A TRIPLE EXECUTION.

Las P&lmas, Grand Canary, has been the scene of a long- delayed execution. The three murderers were Jose Tomas" Victoriana Santana, otuerwise " Pereira," aged 38, known as the " terror of Matanzas ;" Jos6 Ramon Masso, aged 25, the son of a Havannah merchant ; and Rafael Benitez de Larrosa, a native of Teneriffe, 29 years old, a manufacturer of leather straps and horse girths. The two youDger prisoners confessed their crime before the trial was over. The executioner, Ramon Lopez, was arrested and kept in confinement lest he should decamp or get drunk before the event. This man had been in receipt of a salary of £70 a year for more than 20 years, and had executed only one criminal in Teneriffe. On the morning of the execution numbers of private and public carriages left the city laden with people, who would not remain even in their houses on such a day. All the shops and most private houses were closed. At the appointed hour three carts with their occupants were ranged before the platform, when a middle sized, stout, coarsely clad man ascended and flourished his hat in the air and threw it among the crowd. He next opened a flat box and took out a steel frame, made of two parallel steel bars, two feet long and Qve inches apart, joined in the centre by a third stout bar, through which works a long and powerful screw. At one end the bars were joined by a semicircle of steel, that worked on a hinge on one bar and closed with a pin on the other. The machine was then fitted on to the middle vertical plank, the long bars working in grooves, which had been cut in the wood. A second machine was brought out and fitted on the rigut-hand plank. This operation took twenty minutes, during the whole of which time the three prisoners were looking on. Larrosa left the cart and ascended the steps. He sat mechanically on the small board, with his back to the plank. The steel collar was placed over his throat, and a white handkerchief tied over his face. The priest knelt before the prisoner and told him to repeat the Creed; at the word "suffered" the screw turned and all was over. His two companions were looking on. Next came Masao, supported by two priests. The same scene followed on the right-hand plank. Santana, who had witnessed all the proceedings, afterwards Walked up unaided, smiling, and now and then nodding to some chance acquaintance. All being ready, he went on his knees and addressed the crowd in a clear and sonqrous voice that betrayed no symptoms of -trepidation. He exhorted the citizens of Las Talmas and the fathers of families to teach, their children morality and religion, and to respect the property of others. With a bow and a smile, he took his SBat7~ana~atl-"Was over. A'remarKa'ble circumstance connected with this affair is that, owing to the number of appeals which had to be made to Madrid, the order of the executiou did not reaofc*the island till two years and five months after the crime was committed.