The garroting instrument seems to consist of a collar of brass, whose front-piece opens on a hinge, and part of whose rear portion is susceptible to being suddenly pushed forward by the impulse of a big fourth-rate screw working through the post, something after the system of a letter-press. The criminal sentenced to death is seated on a small board attached to the upright, his neck is placed in the brass collar, the front-piece is snapped to, and when all is ready, the executioner merely gives the handle of the screw a complete turn. The small moving back-piece in the collar is by this means suddenly pushed forward against the top of the spine of the unfortunate, and death comes instantaneously from the snapping of the spinal cord. The executioners in Manila have always been themselves criminals, and in breaking the spinal cords of their fellow-criminals, they certainly pay a price for keeping their own vertebræ intact. Like most men in their profession, however, they are well paid, and this operator got sixteen dollars besides his regular monthly salary of twenty, for each man on whom he turned the screw. The sight of the unfortunate prisoners in the little carts, supported by the priests, was pitiable in the extreme, and their faces bore marks of unforgetable anguish. The priests ascended the platform, and the man with the embroidered banner was careful to stand far away at the side, for, according to the religious custom of the epoch, a condemned man who merely happens to touch the standard of the Church on his way to the scaffold cannot thereafter be executed, but suffers only life imprisonment. The executioner, in a derby hat, black coat, white breeches, and no shoes, took his position behind the post at one side of the scaffold, and the first victim was carried up out of the cart and seated on the narrow bench. He was too weak to help himself or make resistance; the black cloak was thrown over his shoulders, a rope tied around his waist, the hood drawn down over his face, and the collar sprung around his neck. Then, while two priests, with uncovered heads, held their crucifixes up before him, and sprinkled holy water over the hood and long, black death-robes, the chief prison official waved his sword, the executioner gave the big screw-handle a sudden twist till his arms crossed, and without a motion of any sort, except a slight forward movement of the naked feet, the first of the condemned men had solved the great problem.