Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1859 — How they Behead People in China. [ARTICLE]

How they Behead People in China.

Hong Kong Correspondence of the New Hampshire Patriot. The criminals were brought in gangs, if they were able to walk, or if they could not walk, in chairs or baskets, the latter of a kind in which usually hogs are carried, the baskets being attached to two poles, and thus curried on the shoulders of two men. Whei the culprits reached the execution ground they were tumbled out of their ch irs and b-skets down upon the pavement with as little care and sympathy as though they had been loads of pumpkins or potatoes. The executioners then arranged them in rows, three usually, when there was a large number to be despatched, as my friend informed me, one executioner taking his place at the head of each row, and giving each victim a blow on the back side of the head to push it forward to lay it convenient for the sword, as all knelt and awaited the fatal moment. When all these things werethu* arranged the death warrant came; it was a banner, and as soon as it waved in sight, without any verbal order being given, the headsmen began their work of death. There was a rapid succession of dull crunching sounds—chop, chop, chop, and down went the heads, while the bodies fell forward and streams of blood were shot into the air like jets of water from a fire engine. The friend who was my guide, as we stood on the very pavement by the wall on one side of the street where these rows of victims were drawn up, told me fie had been obliged, as others also had been, to step back of these w retc ied kneeling men when the work commenced, lest the blood, if they were in front, should stream across the street and fail upon them. Nd second blow was ever given, for these dexterous men are slayers, educated for their work; for until they are able, with their heavy swords, which are in part butchers’ cleavers as well as sw rds, to slice a great bulbous vegetable as thin as we slice cucumbers, they are not eligible to this office. Three seconds are sufficient for each head. In one minute five executioners clear off one hundred heads. It took rather longer for the assistants to pick up the Leads and bodies and pack them up in rough coffins preparatory to their being carried away into the fields and hills outside the walls for interment. Nor were they at all careful that the old companionship of head and body should be continued, but they often thrust a head and body into a coffin that had never met before. As hundreds were sometimes executed at a time, occasionally coming up to five hundred, while these scenes were of constant occurrence, the whole area swam in blood—if not. to the horses’ bridles, yet almost over the shoes and up to the ankles. The earth does not contain so horrible an Aceldama, so true a "Field of B'oo ’’