THE EXECUTION OF CARL CADWALLER. 239 



as it did. The head, from being cut off in a direct 

 line with the shoulders, and being so short and 

 thick, had exactly the appearance of having been 

 scooped out, and the appearance of the body with 

 the head off was very remarkable. The man was 

 a short, thick-set fellow, and without his head, as 

 he lay on the ground before being put into the cart, 

 no one would have said that he could be more than 

 two feet long. 



The executioner, who had performed this most 

 important and unpleasant task most dexterously, 

 was very respectably connected, and the office of 

 headsman to the canton Schaffhausen had been in 

 his family for many years, and was considered rather 

 an honourable position than otherwise. There had 

 not been any execution in the canton for twenty- 

 five years, and therefore it might be a subject of 

 wonder how a man who had no practice could perform 

 such an operation with certainty and dexterity. The 

 way in which a headsman gets his hand in is this. 

 He practises for some weeks before his services 

 are required at a heap of wooden plates or trenchers, 

 much like those one has seen in this country for 

 putting potatoes boiled in their skins on. These, of 

 which there are about a dozen, and are about an 



