Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 120, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1913 — TO HIDE GUILLOTINE [ARTICLE]

TO HIDE GUILLOTINE

Bill Is Before French Parliament . to Abolish Publicity. Spectacle of "Red Widow" and Her Victims In Streets of Paris Being Opposed By Many as ConduoIvs to Crime. : Paris. —The death Of criminals upon a guillotine set up in the street in full view of the public may soon be abolished in France. A bill for the repeal of the law providing for public executions of the death sentence is now pending in the chamber of deputies. It is therefore probable that when the three —and possibly sou of the notorious bandits of the Bonnot band of outlaws are chopped off by the “Red Widow," as the French call the guillotine, the gory spectacle may be given in private. Should that be the case the motor bandits would be the first to “benefit” by the new law. Public beheadings are intended to inspire awe. The would-be assassin is supposed to see the terrible end of fellows such as he and refrain from committing the deed. The reverse of the picture is said by many to be true. The hardened criminal usually meets his doom in a way that inspires other of his stamp with the notion that he is a real hero, for public beheadings furnish occasion for the exhibition of a certain kind of bravado which has a strong appeal to the desperado type. Senator de Chaumie, one of the leaders of the public beheading abolition movement, so says, adding that not only are such scenes disgusting beyond expression, but demoralizing in the extreme. Beheadings now take place at sunrise. The condemned man is kept in ignorance of the date of his death until he is awakened to have his final toilet made for the knife. Until that moment he has hopes of executive clemency, it being the invariable rule to ask the president as a last resort to use his prerogative and show mercy. The scene usually is in some street near the prison in which the man is confined. The narrower and more crooked that street, the better, since the authorities desire as few of the rabble as possible to see the blade fall. Scores of police and a large number of troops, on foot and a-horse, keep ths crowds back and only the officials, newspaper men and prison chaplain are grouped about the base of the guillotine. When several persons are beheaded they are brought out of the prison one at • ’time, the last to die not seeing the others meet their fate. The criminal is tied to a sort of block which pivots in the middle; he is given a push, he falls horizontal and the triangular blade descends. The head rolls into a basket on one side, the body is dumped into a similar but longer receptacle on the other. Then the carcass is carted away at a gallop while the headman’s assistants wash the guillotine with huge sponges, which they wring out in palls of water. They call this "making the widow’s toilet for her next husband.” Mugh of this sickening sight as possible is hidden from the public, which remains passive, or becomes demonstrative according as to whether the man is an ordinary criminal, or "pop ular" or much disliked. If hated cries of "A mort!” and "Death to the murderer!" are beard as the knife falls. Senator Chaumie is against Wing the guillotine up a narrow street or blind alley. In a speech before the senate he said he favored abolition of the guillotine as a public exhibition, Mft until the government should make the necessary laws, beheading should take place in the broad open day and tn the most crowded squares to be found. If the death Is to be made public, said, then let it be really public. Slave it where all may see it

He guarantees that if this rule be followed everybody would be so sickened at the sight there would be little op position to private beheadings.