The Weekly Perrysburg journal. [volume] (Perrysburg, O. [Ohio]) 1861-1???, 1866-06-15
Seleeted a9listellanp.
Remarkable Escapes from the
GallOWs.


We do not as nation, hang so many cul.
prits as in bygone years. We may by and
10y cease to inflict this awful punishment at
all. But as long as the law, and religion,
and justice, aid public sentiment are con
sidered TO warrant the continuance of this
ancient mode of retribution, so long ought
there TO be no mocllery, no mistake, no
trckery about it. If man survives, after
hanging, without proof of his innocence
accompanying his recovery, it would be
Infinitely better to society (of his wretched
self we say nothing) that he had not been
hanged at all seeing that the sense of Just
punishment would be swallowed up in a
kind of pity for the novelty of his position
Now such things have occurred suf.
6cientIy often to merit attention. Men
have recovered their lives, or rather re-
tanned life, under nearly desperate circum-
stacesA-in spite of what seemed to be due
inhiction of tho punishment of death by
suspension. Something Of this possibility
'Qf escape was owing to the mode in which
the punishment was usually inflicted !; and
to many it may probably be unknown that
a change has been made in recent times in
the construction and arrangement of the APP
paratus of carrying out this great penalty
Of the law. a.i
For something like six hundred years, at
any rate, such escapes have from time 20
time been recorded. III 1864 there was
woman named Inetta de Balshan condemned
to death for collusion with robbers she
was hanged and remained on the gibbet
(f the records of the time are to be trusted)
no less than three days; and yet she sur
vived to receive pardon from Henry III
In ] 3l3, Matthew of Enderby mas hanged
for some crime ofiwhieh he had been convict
ed he was cutJdowh, aud revived just be-
fore the body was inferred. In 1868, Wal.
ter Wynkeburn was hanged at Leicester /;
when cut down, ho was carried in cart to
the cemetery of the Holy Sepucher in that
city; lie gradually retained sensibility
while the cart was rumbing along, and es-
capped with his life. Similar cases occurred
in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. The
seventeenth century was exceptionally full
of such instances. DR.. Plot mentions the
strange lot of Swiss, on the authority of
Obadiah Walker. Master Of University Col
lege; this man is said TO have been hung
no less than thirteen times without losing
his lite his windpipe hayiug been co6vert
ed by disease into substance almost as
hardas bone. .s sud ,ah esauslsa- ID
No Instance has been so much discussed
as thatsef Anna Green, which took place
duriRg the time of the commonwealth. Jud
ges and physicians alike referred tc il, as
affording Illustrations for or against legal
and medical testimony, This poor girl was
executed at Marston, in 01fordshire, onDe.
cember Ia, 1850, for. iufanticide, a charge
which could only be proved against her by
much straining Of the law this severity,
and a knowledge Of the wrong she had sui
fered in other ways, made her an object Of
much public sympathy. The hanging was
accompanied by certain COARSE and shock
ing pullings and strikiigs Of the body and
limbs which in those days was supposed
to insure more effeetually the death Of The
victim, and to lesson the period of suffering
Alter hanging the usual time she was cut
down, actually ssampied upon while pros
tratc, aud left with the rope unslacked