gh the streets of the town, one of the followers proclaiming aloud
the crimes committed and the sentences passed on the crucified. Sleepy
women and children, with uncombed hair, peep out of the paper windows,
while the men hurry down to the street and join the procession in large
numbers, making fun at the expense of the poor wretches, and even
insulting them; while the latter, hang helpless and defenceless from
their crosses, their bodies livid with cold, pain and starvation.
Occasions such as these, are regular orgies for the soldiers, and those
who follow the mournful _cortege_. Not a wine-shop on the road-side is
left unvisited, and continual halts are made that wine may be freely
drunk, and food swallowed, as only Corean soldiers know how to do it.
Occasionally, a pious passer-by, moved to compassion, may, amid the howls
of the crowd, raise his wine-cup to the lips of one of the sentenced, and
help him thus to make death more merry. Once this sort of thing is
started, the example is usually at once emulated by others, and, as the
hours go by, a considerable amount of intoxicating stuff is consumed, not
only by the executioner, soldiers and followers, but also by those to be
executed. Before very long, however, the bodies of the victims thus
carried become senseless and nearly frozen to death. Their heads then
hang down pitifully, all blue and congested, and quivering with the
jerking of the cart.

"Era! Era! Picassa!" ("Get out! get away!") the drunken soldiers call out
at intervals, as they swallow their last mouthful of rice, and order the
_mapus_ to move on to the next eating-place. Crowds of men and children
collect round the miserable show and prudent fathers, pointing at the
victims, show their heirs what will be the fate of those who do what is
wrong. During the whole day are the poor wretches thus carted to and fro,
in the streets of the town, stoppages being made at all the public
eating-places, where feasting invariably takes place, though it is also
almost as invariably left unpaid for.

Only when sunset has come is it that the procession, having made its way
towards one of the city gates, finally leaves the town and winds its way
through the open country to a suitable spot for the chopping-off process.
Executions are not held at any particular spot; and in former days, even
a few years ago, it was not an uncommon occurrence to see the dead
bodies of beheaded people lying about in the streets of Seoul. N