Friday 30 October 2020

BILL GATES WORLDWIDE EXECUTION OF YOUNG AND OLD BY VACCINES AND NON LETHAL COVID-19!

 

 ADVANCED MODERN EXECUTION BY ETHNIC CLEANSING, VACCINES, COVID-19, ATOM BOMBS, EMBARGOES, AND MONSANTO VERSUS CIVILISED CANNON, AXE, GUILLOTINE, AND ELECTRIC CHAIR,   EXECUTION OF OLD!

Execution by Cannon May 5, 2015

Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern , trackback

execution by cannon

Human beings have long showed remarkable ingenuity at getting rid of their fellow human beings, especially perhaps human beings that they do not like. Once the cannon was invented it was only a matter of time before someone tied a prisoner to the front and lit a fuse, blowing his body into a constellation of pain, the head dropping neatly in front. There are reports of ‘blown from gun’ or ‘blown from cannon’ all over the world, from Iran to Brazil and from Central Asia to the Caribbean. However, there is no question that the natural home of this form of punishment was India. The punishment was used, meanwhile, longest in Afghanistan, just to the north of the Raj. The following passage dates to 1842 though cannons would be used to dispatch prisoners until the 1930s in that rather terrifying area of central Asia.

A little before sunset the horse artillery guns were drawn out, and presently the three criminals were brought to the ground [of killing]… the three men were then tied with ropes to the guns, their backs against the muzzle. The rope, fastened to one the spokes of the wheel, passed round the arms, over the muzzle of the gun, round the other arm, and then to the spoke of the opposite wheel, which kept the body fixed. The prisoners, with their wrists tied together, crying incessantly, ‘There is no God but God, and Mahomet is the prophet of God!’ Just as everything was ready, the prisoner in the middle was let loose, having been pardoned by the Schah [a day to remember], and the noise made the other two turn their heads. At that instant the priming fired, and an explosion took place. I could only see the body nearest to me for the thick clouds of smoke. One arm and shoulder blade was driven perpendicularly upwards, at least 100 feet; the other arm and part of the body were found right forward, yards off, with the hand torn away. The explosion produced a shower of blood and small particles of flesh. On going to the gun I found the head separate, as if it had been purposely severed from the body, and lying between the wheels; close to it were the lower limbs, trunkless, upturned on the ground, with part of the intestines twisted round one leg.

There are accounts from Afghanistan of kites haunting the killing sites to actually claim body parts as they sailed into the air: another description has a western diplomat injured by a flying limb. Why though was being blown by cannon so terrible: if Beach was given a choice between the electric chair and a large gun, he’d strap himself to the barrel in his enthusiasm to avoid old sparky? Much of the horror comes down perhaps to the disintegration of the body, that is particularly resented by Muslims and Christians (particularly Catholics)… There was presumably a lot of cleaning up to do as well. The British writer who described the acts here had no doubts that gentlemen did not blow even the worst criminals from cannons: ‘the… description of  execution will serve to illustrate the barbarous character of the people into whose power our countrymen, and some of our countrywomen, have unhappily fallen’, i.e. the Afghans.

 http://www.strangehistory.net/2015/05/05/execution-by-cannon/

Yet the British themselves later used cannons for executions, particularly martial executions where native soldiers (Beach has found no example of British troops blowing British troops from the canon) had mutinied. The most important took place at the time of the Indian Mutiny (1857) where Indian soldiers who had risen in revolt were routinely blown from the cannon. There is at least one case where a British officer excused this action by saying (General Chamberlain, 35 Regiment) that he killed two of his men thus out of respect for their Brahman status: ‘I wished to save them from the pollution of the hangman’s touch’. There is also at least one case (Nurgoond 1858) where an Indian requested the cannon but was refused it by British officials. However, the suspicion is that this was the most ghastly death the British had at their disposal and it was done as an act of revenge against natives who had carried out or who had planned atrocities on British civilians (including blowing from the cannon). It would be interesting to trace its place in martial law: or was this just an improvised ‘judicial’ act?

These British acts in India are seen as atrocities as well of course, by Indian nationalists and professors of colonialism. The cannon punishment was introduced by Europeans and only taken up unwillingly by the locals… But does this stand up, in the least, to historical scrutiny? In the two centuries before the mutiny most records Beach has found have Indian princes, not Europeans use the punishment. In 1790/91, for example, one Captain Rutledge, a British subject, was blown to pieces by a cannon on the instructions of Tipu Sultan. Of course, Europeans may have introduced the idea. The very earliest record of execution by cannon dated to 1509 and Portuguese tactics of intimidation in Sri Lanka. But cannons had arrived in Europe from the east where they had been around since the thirteenth century, including India. It is quite possible that inventive Muslim despots in the north had already been taking apart their criminal class with cannon balls before European ships arrived off Madras. Can anyone drag execution by cannon back into pre-colonial times in India or elsewhere? Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com

Three afterthoughts. First, the Wikipedia page on this is fabulous, a real credit to its writer: are we seeing a slow change in the quality of Wikipedia? Second, it could be argued that the last instance of blown by cannon dates not to Afghanistan in the 1930s but to North Korea in 2012 when the Great Leader’s vice minister of war was dispatched with a carefully aimed mortar round: Christ… Third, how is it possible that after several decades of study and writing Beach only today learnt that ‘cannon’ is spelt with two ns?

25 may 2015: Séb J writes in to point out that we are now killing people with anti-aircraft guns. Now guess which country they’d do that in…


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Skull of Indian executed by cannon for mutiny should be repatriated because he was innocent, says academic 

The skull came complete with a note which claimed to tell its history.
The skull came complete with a note which claimed to tell its history. 

1903: Ora Copenhaver and William Jackson, a double hanging 1381: Simon of Sudbury and Robert Hales during Wat Tyler’s peasant rebellion

1857: Twelve blown from cannons in British Punjab

June 13th, 2011 Headsman

An account from the February 15, 1862 Harper’s Weekly of a very messy spectacle orchestrated to maintain British control of Punjab.

Another execution of a similar nature took place on the 13th of June, at Ferozepore. All the available troops and public establishments were convened to witness the scene. Some of the mutineers were to be hung, and around the gallows, erected during the night previous, the soldiers were drawn up. The mutineers were then brought into the centre, and the proceedings of the general Court-Martial was read. Upon being informed that if they would become Queen’s evidence they would be reprieved, twelve of the criminals accepted the offer and were marched to the rear. Two were taken to the gallows. They ascended the ladder with firm steps, and to the last moment betrayed no emotion of fear.

The remaining ten were now led away to the artillery guns, and while their irons were being struck off some cried, “Do not sacrifice the innocent for the guilty!” Two others rejoined, “Hold your sniveling: die men and not cowards — you defended your religion, why then do you crave your lives? Sahibs! they are not Sahibs, they are dogs!” Others then began to upbraid their commanding officer. The wretched beings were quickly fastened to the muzzles of ten guns, charged with blank cartridge.

The commanding officer directed port-fires to be lit. “Ready!” “Fire!” and the drama was played out. An eye-witness says: “The scene and stench were overpowering. I felt myself terribly convulsed, and could observe that the numerous native spectators were awe-stricken — that they not only trembled like aspen-leaves, but also changed into unnatural hues. Precaution was not taken to remove the sponge-and-load men from the muzzles of the guns; the consequence was that they were greatly bespattered with blood, and one man in particular received a stunning blow from a shivered arm!“

A lengthier account, no less riveting and we suppose more accurate on account of its primary sourcing, is to be found in this memoir or the British campaign against the Sepoy rebellion.

June 13 The morning of June 13 was fixed upon for the execution. A gallows was erected on the plain to the north side of the fort, facing the native bazaars, and at a distance of some 300 yards. On this two sepoys were to be hanged, and at the same time their comrades in mutiny were to be blown away from guns.

We paraded at daylight every man off duty, and, with the band playing, marched to the place of execution, and drew up in line near the gallows and opposite the native quarter.

Shortly after our arrival the European Light Field Battery, of six guns, appeared on the scene, forming up on our left flank, and about twenty yards in front of the Light Company.

The morning was close and sultry, not a cloud in the sky, and not a breath of wind stirring; and I confess I felt sick with a suffocating sense of horror when I reflected on the terrible sight I was about to witness.

Soon the fourteen mutineers, under a strong escort of our men with fixed bayonets, were seen moving from the fort. They advanced over the plain at our rear, and drew up to the left front of, and at right angles to, the battery of artillery.

I was standing at the extreme right of the line with the Grenadier Company, and some distance from the guns; but I had provided myself with a pair of strong glasses, and therefore saw all that followed clearly and distinctly.

There was no unnecessary delay in the accomplishment of the tragedy. Two of the wretched creatures were marched off to the gallows, and placed with ropes round their necks on a raised platform under the beam.

The order was given for the guns to be loaded, and quick as thought the European artillerymen placed a quarter charge of powder in each piece. The guns were 9-pounders, the muzzles standing about 3 feet from the ground.

During these awful preparations, I watched at intervals the faces of the condemned men, but could detect no traces of fear or agitation in their demeanour. The twelve stood two deep, six in front and six in the rear, calm and undismayed, without uttering a word.

An officer came forward, and, by the Brigadier’s order, read the sentence of the court-martial, and at its conclusion the six men in front, under escort, walked towards the battery.

There was a death-like silence over the scene at this time, and, overcome with horror, my heart seemed almost to cease beating.

Arrived at the guns, the culprits were handed over to the artillerymen, who, ready prepared with strong ropes in their hands, seized their victims. Each of these, standing erect, was bound to a cannon and tightly secured, with the small of the back covering the muzzle. And then all at once the silence which reigned around was broken by the oaths and yells of those about to die. These sounds were not uttered by men afraid of death, for they showed the most stoical indifference, but were the long-suppressed utterances of dying souls, who, in the bitterness of their hearts, cursed those who had been instrumental in condemning them to this shameful end. They one and all poured out maledictions on our heads; and in their language, one most rich in expletives, they exhausted the whole vocabulary.

Meanwhile the gunners stood with lighted port-fires, waiting for the
word of command to fire the guns and launch the sepoys into eternity.

These were still yelling and raining abuse, some even looking over their shoulders and watching without emotion the port-fires, about to be applied to the touch-holes, when the word “Fire!” sounded from the officer in command, and part of the tragedy was at an end.

A thick cloud of smoke issued from the muzzles of the cannons, through which were distinctly seen by several of us the black heads of the victims, thrown many feet into the air.

While this tragic drama was enacting, the two sepoys to be hanged were turned off the platform.

The artillerymen again loaded the guns, the six remaining prisoners, cursing like their comrades, were bound to them, another discharge, and then an execution, the like of which I hope never to see again, was completed.

All this time a sickening, offensive smell pervaded the air, a stench which only those who have been present at scenes such as these can realize — the pungent odour of burnt human flesh.

The artillerymen had neglected putting up back-boards to their guns, so that, horrible to relate, at each discharge the recoil threw back pieces of burning flesh, bespattering the men and covering them with blood and calcined remains.

A large concourse of natives from the bazaars and city had assembled in front of the houses, facing the guns at a distance, as I said before, of some 300 yards, to watch the execution. At the second discharge of the cannon, and on looking before me, I noticed the ground torn up and earth thrown a slight distance into the air more than 200 paces away. Almost at the same time there was a commotion among the throng in front, some running to and fro, while others ran off in the direction of the houses. I called the attention of an officer who was standing by my side to this strange and unaccountable phenomenon, and said, half joking: “Surely the scattered limbs of the sepoys have not been carried so far?”

He agreed with me that such was impossible; but how to account for the sight we had seen was quite beyond our comprehension.

The drama came to an end about six o’clock, and as is usual, even after a funeral or a military execution, the band struck up an air, and we marched back to barracks, hoping soon to drive from our minds the recollection of the awful scenes we had witnessed.

Two or three hours after our return news arrived that one native had been killed and two wounded among the crowd which had stood in our front, spectators of the recent execution. How this happened has never been explained. At this time a “cantonment guard” was mounted, consisting of a company of European infantry, half a troop of the 10th Light Cavalry, and four guns, and two of these guns loaded with grape were kept ready during the night, the horses being harnessed, etc. Half the cavalry also was held in readiness, saddled; in fact, every precaution was taken to meet an attack.

As far as I can recollect, there were but two executions by blowing away from guns on any large scale by us during the Mutiny; one of them that at Ferozepore.

On this day..

Possibly related executions:

Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Blown from Cannon,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,England,Execution,Gruesome Methods,Hanged,History,India,Known But To God,Martyrs,Mass Executions,Occupation and Colonialism,Power,Public Executions,Revolutionaries,Separatists,Soldiers,Treason,Wartime Executions

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  1. Reply
    1. You don't need to know my name says:
      13 December, 2016 at 5:37 pm

      The Rebellion of 1857 had much more than religion behind it. Trade was terribly limited, and many British officers within India practiced illegal slavery of the native people as well as forms of sex trafficking. Furthermore, sepoys and other Indians working for the British were given very little pay, and were treated as second-class citizens in their own country.

      While both sides did terrible things during the rebellion, both the British and Indians should learn lessons alike. This rebellion was also very important for progression, in the end, as it was the first time that Muslims, Hindus, and others disregarded things like religion and caste and stood up against what they thought wasn’t justified.

      Before the rebellion, Muslim Mughals and other kingdoms fought each other. Great leaders actually tried to end this in the 1600s, but the East India Company turned them against each other once more in the 1700s as a strategy of conquest, promising both sides of a fight protection without the other knowing, then briskly taking over land and claiming that it was to reinstitute chaos, while leaving out the fact that they were the ones who had started much of it in the first place.

      It was things like these that caused the rebellion, not savagery that the British said was the product of an “inferior race”. Lots of racism against the third world can be traced back to empires, most notably the British, trying to justify what was unjustified, or make themselves look like heroes when those that stood in their path knew the truth.

       

      Botched Beheadings April 29, 2013

      Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Medieval, Modern , trackback

      big axe

      The guillotine was originally invented as an act of humanitarianism to liberate criminal kind from the axe. It made sense, after all, to remove a criminal’s head from his or from her shoulders if that criminal had to be killed. But the procedure was messy. Two important things could go wrong while removing said head with a free falling blade. First, the criminal might move slightly on the block offering a moving target. Second, the executioner might miss his mark and take a blow or more to get the head off the neck. A famous example is Mary Queen of Scots, there the first blow of the sword hit the back of her head: Mary whispered, as well she might, ‘sweet Jesus’ and the second blow was more successful going through all the neck save for some sinews.

      Criminals were all too aware of the danger. James Duke of Monmouth memorably  told Jack Ketch, his executioner. ‘Here are six guineas for you. Do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard that you struck him three or four times. My servant will give you some more gold if you do the work well.’ In fact, Ketch took five blows to dispatch the usurper. On the first blow James was so disgusted that he sat up and stared at Ketch.

      Ketch failed his victim, his employers and the crowd, who booed him. But sometimes you can feel sorry for the executioner as well as the man or woman about to die. When Margaret Pole was to be killed on Henry VIII’s orders – she is one of the most striking examples of judicial murder from that bloody reign – the elderly woman refused to put her head on the block, recalling madame du Barry. Pole had to be forced down and the unnerved executioner took ten or eleven blows to remove her head. It is enough to send you running for the sharp blade of the guillotine: though note that in Germany axe decapitations were still being carried out under the Third Reich; whereas in Saudia Arabia today…

      In any case as a bit of catharsis after this unpleasantness. What about the following story that appeared in a British newspaper 5 March 1681. It related to an (attempted) execution in Stockholm. It is presumably a fake.

      We are informed of a strange circumstance which happened some days since near this city. A woman, who, for being married to two or more husbands, was condemned to be beheaded; being prepared for death, and laying her head upon the block, the executioner gave the blow, but the axe rebounded like a tennis-ball; whereupon the condemned party rose up, and complained of injustice, and willed the executioner to desist, and alledged that she was free. Being re-conducted to prison, and visited, nothing appeared save only a small red stroke, and a little swelled, as we are informed by the Ministers of Justice of that place. The hatchet was sent for hither, and is as sharp as a razor; the swelling is now over; and many are of opinion that there is some cunning artifice in it.

      Other bad beheading stories: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com

      ***30 April 2013: Chris from Haunted Ohio Books writes in: Here is a botched decapitation from 1874 Japan. The backstory: “The Japan Gazette of Aug. 21 contains an account of the murder of Mr. Haber, the German Consul at Hokodadi, by a native, who says he was actuated by a demon.[The murderer was described as a “spiritualistic fanatic” in other papers.]  He killed his victim with a sword, slashing him in a most horrible manner, and cutting one leg entirely off.” New York Herald-Tribune 11 September 1874: p. 1 And excerpts from the execution story: A JAPANESE EXECUTION. A Horrible Scene. Decapitation of the Murderer of the German Consul Hakodate, September 27, 1874. On Friday evening notice was given to the consuls that at 9 o’clock A.M., of the day following, Tazaki Hidechika would be sentenced for the murder of the late Mr. Haber, acting German Consul at this port, and that he would be executed at 10 o’clock, in the jail inclosure. [This was to prevent the prisoner from exhibiting “unseemly bravado.”] The prisoner was made to kneel, blindfolded, at the edge of a trench. “Two executioners stood by with their swords, which were dipped in water. First executioner advanced and struck, missing his aim and hitting under the neck close to the shoulders; the body fell forward, with the head in the trench, seeming to suffer much. A second blow was struck and then the hesitant executioner advanced and delivered a heavy blow, which, being unsuccessful, a fourth attempt to sever the head from the body was made but failed. One executioner then took the head by the hair and began to saw the head off with his sword in most horrible manner, but was stopped by the chief officer. Water was thrown on the face, and in order to show the face to the witnesses, the head not being entirely severed it was necessary to partially lift the body up with it. The body was covered with a mat and Tazaki Hidechika had met his due reward. The time occupied by the decapitation was two minutes. As the head was not severed from the body as per sentence and according to Japanese custom, the question may be raised as to whether the failure was intentional or not, as Hidechika may have preferred to suffer more to having his head cut entirely off; as to the Japanese idea of disgrace I am entirely ignorant. Notice of the execution was posted in one place, written in Japanese.” Wheeling [WV] Register 21 November 1874: p. 1 And one from 1882 Denmark: A HORRIBLE EXECUTION A Drunken Headsman Causes a Frightful Scene. Copenhagen, December 11. The entire country was thrilled by a general feeling of horror when the papers this morning brought the details of the execution of a criminal in a provincial place the previous day. According to the Danish law, criminals condemned to death suffer the last penalty of the law by decapitation by means of an axe, the block being placed at some conspicuous point as near as possible to the place where the murder was committed. A man condemned to death was to be executed yesterday morning and, as usual, a large crowd of people from the surrounding districts had assembled round the spot, only one constable being present to keep order. When the usual formalities were gone through, the criminal laid his head on the block; but the eye and the hand of the executioner, who had been drinking heavily on the previous day, were uncertain, and the stroke fell over both shoulders, the criminal uttered a smothered cry of pain. The executioner wrenched the axe out of the wound, wielded it again, and struck the criminal high upon the back of the head; again he wrenched the axe out of the wound and succeeded at last in cutting the head off. The crowd rushed to the headless trunk, some to try to catch some drops of blood, which the peasants think has some kind of magical effect to cure certain diseases, others to satisfy their morbid curiosity; in fact, a horrible and disgusting scene took place, several men and women fainting. Every one agrees that such a disgraceful spectacle must never more take place in Denmark; and the Minister of Justice has already, with praiseworthy speed, declared his intention to bring in a short bill providing for execution by means of the guillotine and within the precincts of a prison. Plain Dealer [Cleveland, OH] 12 December 1882: p. 4. Then the Count: You’re right to feel sorry for the poor old executioner, whether he was a headsman or a hangman. It was an extremely unpopular job, but somebody had to do it. The public executioner was shunned by absolutely everyone, the belief being that his grim trade gave him an ill-omened aura that might somehow rub off on people like leprosy, so he frequently had to live in an isolated house, where of course he got no visitors except officials coming to tell him his services were required. At one time the public executioner of Edinburgh lived in a now-vanished and very lonely cottage on Arthur’s Seat, and eventually grew so depressed that he committed suicide, which of course automatically made the house haunted and even more uninhabitable than it would have been anyway, hence its total demolition. The guillotine, under a different name but the same device in almost all respects, was invented in Halifax. The “Halifax Gibbet” was mainly intended as a humanitarian way of dispatching felons as mercifully as possible, but it also did away with the need for an executioner, since all that was required to do the deed was a tug on a rope. This meant that a committee of law officers could all pull the rope at the same time, sharing responsibility while allowing each of them to think that it wasn’t his feeble tug but somebody else’s that actually released the blade. (Similarly, in those  American states that execute murderers by firing-squad, one rifle is always loaded with blanks, so that should the executioners feel bad about taking a human life, they can console themselves with the thought that maybe they didn’t.) Sometimes an animal was used; if the crime was stealing livestock, the actual creature stolen, assuming it hadn’t been eaten, became the executioner.For some reason it never caught on in the UK, except in Edinburgh, where a copy of the Halifax Gibbet known as the Edinburgh Maiden was used for a time. The good Dr. Guillotine’s machine was in fact the third such device, and presumably inspired by the other two, His only innovation was making the blade triangular, which resulted in an even more efficient lopping action.’ Thanks Chris and thanks to the Count!

       

      Dr Beachcombing introduces himself…

      Dr Beachcombing lives part of his time in the village of Little Snoring in an undisclosed English county (not Norfolk…) and the rest of his time in an undisclosed village in Tuscany.  He likes villages.

      He is particularly curious about the strange and the unexpected in records of the past: exceptions that prove or disprove rules. He increasingly suspects that there are no rules, but that’s another story…

      Over the years he has put together several bulging filing cabinets full of these strange and unexpected details. He has classified them very roughly into eleven categories – used as the organising principle of the blog.

      1) Burning Libraries: books and texts that we have lost with a supplement on Invisible Libraries, books and texts that we imagined.

      2) Cobblers: widely believed historical myths

      3) Forgotten Kingdoms: the countries/states/ regni that time forgot.

      4) Hinge Moments: the moments when history changed.

      5) WIBT: ‘Wish I’d been there’ – moments that Beachcombing would have given up everything but his wedding ring to see.

      6) Wrong Place: Exotic finds – things and people from afar.

      7) Wrong Time: Harbingers and fossils, things and people that turn up in surprising time periods.

      8 ) WtH: ‘What the Hell!’ My God! or even I don’t understand this reference AT ALL. Please help.

      9) Rogue Researchers: Academics and scholars who use unconventional techniques.

      10) Weird Wars: Soldiers and generals and mayhem in history.

      11) Images: Striking but little known photographs and paintings that bring the past to life.

      He’d also like to add one about famous horses and is plucking up the courage to do so.

      He does not expect the following to  be read as a normal blog. It is more a ‘library of the damned’ that every so often the brave will turn up in internet searches.

      As some people have already asked Beachcombing is coming clean: he has written several books (5/6), one that sold several hundred and one that sold several tens of thousands (actually one ten thousand and a large bit) but that was in another town and the wench is dead…

      For contact try: drbeachcombing[AT]yahoo[DOT]com

      For comment policy: http://www.strangehistory.net/about/comments/

      For reviews try: http://www.strangehistory.net/about/a-note-on-reviews/

       

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