hacked about most
mercilessly through the inexperience or drunkenness of this brute. The
third man in the illustration, for example, had a good part of his left
shoulder cut off as clean as a whistle, although the blow had been meant
to strike the neck; but let this suffice for these horrible details. I
have mentioned them, partly, that they may be compared with the dexterous
doings of the neighbouring Chinese, whose skill in the chopping-off line
is beyond description.

The Chinese possess very long, sharp, well-balanced swords, a single blow
of one of which will sever the head from the body. Besides, they
administer their blows as neatly as the most fastidious of customers
might desire, and the victim does not really undergo much pain. The
executioners, too, are picked out from among the strongest men, and are
so well trained that they never miss a blow. The whole affair,
consequently, is over in less than no time; a few seconds being quite
sufficient to do away with one comfortably. Truly enough, were it to be
one's lot to be executed, I would desire nothing more delightful than to
have one's head "done" by a Celestial executioner. The Coreans, on the
contrary, have not developed the same skill in these difficult matters;
and, what with their blunt and short swords, what with their misjudgment
of distances, they bungle matters most cruelly. Of course, they are,
nevertheless, supposed to kill their victims with single blows, instead
of raining them down by the dozen, hacking the unfortunate creatures in a
most fearful manner, and lopping off their arms or gashing their bodies
before the heads are finally cut off.

The little blocks, upon which the men were laid down, were so arranged
that their chests rested on the upper portions, the head in consequence
being raised several inches from the ground. The idea in this was to make
things easier for the executioner; the same reason also explaining why
the straw rope was tied to each man's top-knot; for in this way another
man could hold him fast to the stool when the decapitation was to take
place. A somewhat closer examination of the first body in the
illustration will at once show how distorted it is. This is what must
have happened: in the final struggle with death the owner had attempted
to resist his fate, when several soldiers had immediately pounced upon
him, with the inevitable result that, in his desperate struggling, the
spine had been broken; a strange, yet ver