Southern Christian Advocate

A MOCK EXECUTION

A strange spectacle was witnessed lately at Arnheim, in Holland. A Catholic priest named Gepkins, having been condemned to death for assassination, the king commuted the sentence into perpetual imprisonment, and the application of the punishment called "brandishing of the axe," which consists in making a prisoner undergo a pretended execution. A scaffold was prepared exactly as for an execution, and a coffin was on it as if to receive the bloody and mangled remains of the condemned. At twelve o'clock in the day Gepkins was driven in a cart to the scaffold. His head and neck were bare, he wore no coat, his hair was cut very close, and his hands were tied behind his back. Two priests were with him giving him religious consolation, and two other carriages contained the officers of justice and the executioner and his assistants, the latter carrying an axe. A detachment of soldiers accompanied the cart, and another surrounded the scaffold. Gepkins ascended to his appointed place with a tottering step.—His eyes were then bandaged, and his head placed on the block. One of the assistant executioners seized him by the hair to keep his head in the right position, and two other assistants held him by the shoulders. The chief executioner then took the axe, flourished it in the air, and let it descend on the prisoner's neck, so as to make him feel the cold steel. The man who held his head afterwards released it: and, for about five minutes, the executioner continued to brandish the axe around the prisoner's head, so close that he could hear the whizzing. The emotion of Gepkins was so great that he fainted. When the ceremony was completed his hands were untied, and he was reconveyed to prison in the cart.—About thirty thousand persons waited from daylight to witness this singular proceeding, the like of which had not occurred within the memory of man. Previous to the prisoner's arrival the crowd was merry and boisterous, and roared forth several songs; but, on the conclusion of the mock execution, it dispersed in silence, and apparently feeling strong emotion.—Galignani's Messenger.