Execution of A Negro.—The following account of the condemnation and execution of a negro named Attention, alias Maquita, at Cayenne, in French Guiana, appears in a French paper.— For more than nine years past the negro Attention had spread terror through the forests of Guiana. He had escaped from his master, and had become leagued with all the deserters from the colony. Several detachments had been sent against him, but they had never succeeded, and the superstitious children of Africa looked upon him as a supernatural being, whom neither the Indian arrow nor the European bayonet could wound. At length, however, he was taken in the mountain of Kaw, and his wife and another negress were also apprehended with him as accomplices. He was tried and condemned to death by the Criminal Tribunal of Cayenne, but he appealed to the Court Royale, and the circumstances of his case were again investigated. When he made his appearance in Court the greatest attention was excited. He was a man about forty, of middle height, but of colossal proportions, and the two women were placed at the bar with him. He persisted in denying the crime of brigandage imputed to him, but admitted that he had run away from his master. In reply to the various accusations of highway robbery made against him, he said that if such crimes had been committed, the authors might perhaps have belonged to his band, but he had no participation in them. The Court, however, confirmed the previous sentence, and he was ordered for execution. At 7 o'clock the next morning he was brought out of prison; he had on a red cap, and wore a shirt of the same colour. He mounted the cart without the least emotion, with the executioner, Attention placing himself by his side. The moment the horse proceeded, the culprit began to sing a song in a sepulchral tone, which struck the spectators with astonishment and terror. He was inattentive to all around him, and his savage and melancholy aspect indicated the most determined firmness. He continued to sing until he arrived at the place of execution, and he descended from the cart in the most careless manner. He refused to have a bandage placed over his eyes, and the executioner had raised the axe three times without daring to strike the blow, such was the terror which the prisoner's glance inspired. At last, however, the fatal blow was given, the head rolled from the scaffold, over which the blood gushed in torrents, and the child of the Niger was launched into eternity. The execution attracted a great many spectators, such spectacles being rarely seen, as the infliction of capital punishment at Guiana is becoming less frequent than ever.
