Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/154

 Executions and Executioners. "the virgin." This machine was the one taken by Dr. Guillotin as his model and im proved on by him. The guillotine is com posed of two upright posts, grooved en the inside and connected at the top by a cross beam. In these grooves, a sharp steel blade, placed obliquely, descends by its own weight on the neck of the victim who is bound to a board laid below. The speed and certainty with which this machine separates the head from the trunk, gives it a great superiority over the axe and sword. During the Reign of Terror the guillotine was in hourly use. Every morning the cart with its broad wheels and» springless body rumbled over the stones to the Place de la Concorde, the place of execu tion, and each morning the victims were crowded in the cart in a manner that would not have been allowed if dogs had been the occupants. The people shouted and sang ri bald songs, they insulted the victims and jeered as the cart rumbled along. It was all done in the name of Liberty, and one can well exclaim with Ma dame Roland, as the execu tioner was tying her hands behind her back, her face to wards the statue of Liberty, "О Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy MAK1K ANTOINETTE ON HER WAY TO THE IJUILLOT1NE. name." It has been said that Marie Thomas Scott of Cambusmichael, one of the Antoinette dreaded the ride to the place of exe murderers of Rizzio, was beheaded by the cution more than the death she was to meet. "maiden " in the year 1 566. Some facetiously Calmly she waited in the Hall of the Dead called this machine the "widow," and in the for the executioner. She wore a white dress, north of England it was often spoken of as a white handkerchief over her shoulders, her

was so called from a pleasantry similar to that of one of its last victims, the Earl of Argyle, who, as he ascended the scaffold in the year 1681, protested that it was "the sweetest maiden he had ever kissed."