DID THE JOB HIMSELF

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 39, 21 February 1929, Page 6

DID THE JOB HIMSELF

GRUESOME EXECUTION. HANGMAN UNNERVED. (Received 12.50 p.m.) BELGRADE, Feb, 20. Four Jugo Slav bandits who wore sentenced to death for murder and robbery were executed at Zagreb Avith a gruesomeness now rarely witnessed on ibis side of the. Orient.

Separate gallows, six feet high, wore erected for each in the courtyard overnight, and the, men were executed one by one in the presence of one another,

Each execution occupied twelve minutes. An indictment was read out by'the President of the Zagreb Senate, clad in a frock coat and a high silk hat. Three of the condemned acted stoically, due,""'smoking a cigarette, turned to the journalists and said: “Send a good report of the execution.”' A second looked to» the sky and said.: “Farewell beautiful* day.” The fourth, while watching Ida companions simulated insanty. He prayed and shouted to tbo assembled crowd. The executioner was unnerved .by the ordeal of hanging the other three and failed thrice to adjust the rope, whereupon tha bandit brushed him aside shouting: “Get out; your hands and brains are frozen. Let mo complete the job” ancT'- calmly ’placed the rope round his neck as though tying a tie on himself. Ho then kicked the trap.