GHASTLY EXHIBITION OF GUILLOTINED HEADS.

Inangahua Times, Volume X, Issue 1536, 17 April 1885, Page 2

GHASTLY EXHIBITION OF GUILLOTINED HEADS.

i One of the most ghastly sight* in Munich (writes a correspondent) it to be witnessed in the Anatomical Museum on Bcbillerstrasse. It consists of the heads of persons who hare been guillotined in Bavaria for a good many years back. I dropped into the museum yesterday and paid for my prurient curosity by the loss of my uppetite for the rest of the day. The niueenm contains a good many attractions, but these heads are the great drawing card. Nothing is said about them in the guide-books,|and so the average tourist goes%nd comes without the slightest suspicion that so remarkable a spectacle is to be seen for a very small fee. The

heads in question are just; inside of the door, te tbe right as you enter. They are enclosed in rows of <j I ass jars ; filled with alcohol. There are seven in a single row which are made more con* spicuoas than the rest, for the reason, I suppose, that they are seuvmirg ef criminals who attempted some ex traordiuary audacious thing and therefore became specially celebrated. The eyes were all closed and the faces expressionless. . I Todki'd 'U vain for any that bespoke still, by facial distortion, the agony of dread which must have inspired the victim as he approached the instrument of his death. . Not a few wore moustaches, bnt none beards ; from which I infer it is customery to shave the chin before execution. The eyes of, over half the heads had been cut out. An exaaiinntion of the places where* the neck had been severed revealed skillful work on the part of the machine, as a rule. Some were as neatly cnt as an apple that you have to divide with your friend. One head had evidently belonged to a man with a short neck, as the amputation had taken place so close to the chin as to almost pare of its under surface. A few necks were very ragged where the knife had struck as though the machine had bungled — necessitating, more than one stroke. The heads of prisou«rs executed in Bavaria are thus publicly pn served for the warning of those who are disposed to be similarly lawless, i and the bodies are tnrned over to the medical students for dissection.