A JAPANESE EXECUTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 421, 20 September 1869, Page 3

A JAPANESE EXECUTION.

(From Chambers' Journal.) The Englishmen followed to the prison — a building of wood, in which prisoners are made to undergo every kind of cruelty and neglect. The horrible modes of punishment resorted to by the Japanese laws are justly reprobated by the writers, who, indeed, cannot endure to dwell upon them. Fortunately, this particular prisoner, though his crime was thieving — one visited with horrible aud devilishly-ingenious punishments — was not to be tortured on this occasion, only to be killed; and as a preliminary, they gave him on his arrival at the prison, a good meal, which he ate witli extraordinary appetite, talking to those around him, and first politely bowing to the foreigners, whom he immediately afterwards cursed. When half an hour elapsed, it was intimated to him that his presence was expected, and, with the assistance of an attendant on each side, he walked into the execuion-ground, and was placed, kneeling and sitting on his heels, in the universal Japanese posture, behind a small hole, dug out for the reception of his head. Fome ten yards in front of hira, and separated by rope running across the square, sat the presiding Yakonin and the prison authorities, calmly fanning themselves; and beyond these, again, were the six or eight foreigners who had been admitted. The prisoner's arms were then pinioned behind his back, but before the cloth was tied over his eyes, he requested that a minute's grace might be allowed him. This being granted, he raised a weak, quivering voice to its highest pitch, and screamed: " My friends 1 " Immediately an unearthly chorus of wails answered the poor wretch from his friends outside the walls, none of whom could be seen from the interior. " Friends 1 " again shouted the unfortunate man; and after each sentence the same thrilling response was sent back to him. "I am about to die, but think not that I care ! " — a horrible attempt at a laugh following the last words. "Do not mind me. It is quite indifferent to me. Look out for yourselves. Syonara ! " (good-bye) ; and with a deeper and more prolonged wail the crowd answered " Syonara ! " He then signalled to his guards that he was ready, and submitted quietly to the operation of blindfolding. The executioner, who had been standing by his side — with the greatest sang froid pouring water on the keen blade of his long two-handled sword— now stepped up, and carefully adjusting his head a little on one side, and in such a position as to hang exactly over the hole in the ground, signed to the officer that all was prepared; but before the latter would give the signal — and while the wretched being before us was momentarily expecting his death stroke- he inquired of Mr L , with every mark of politeness, if the English officers were ready. Of course he quickly answered " Yes," and the word was given ; when, without raising bis weapon more than a foot above the neck of the condemned, the executioner brought down his heavy blade with a plainly audible thud, and the head dropped instantly into the hole prepared for it. . . . Immediately the head fell it was seized, carefully washed before the features could net set, and put into a bag. At the same moment two men jumped on the body, and by means of squeezing and kneeling on it, strove to drive all the blood out of it while it was warm, which being as much as possible effected, it was rolled up, tied into a bundle, and carried off. This dreadful scene was far more terrible to the English beholders than the informal, haphazard Chinese executions, on which occasions the criminals laugh and talk until the last moment, and meet their fate with genuine unconcern.