The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-07-13
Hanging for Amusement.

Two remarkable examples are on
record of persons who allowed them
selves to be hung for the entertainment
of an audience An account of one of
them is given in the Lancet of April II,
1S47. The mans real name was John
Harnshaw, but he performed through
out England under the high-sounding
professional title of Monsieur Gouffe.
He was an athelete, and among other
feats it was customary with him to eX-
hibit the process of hanging. In this
performance he relied for security on
the strength of the muscles of the neck
and throat. He had rope with fixed
knot which could not slip, and passed
both ends of the loop behind one ear.
The whole act was so adroitly managed
that he prevented any. pressure of the
rope on the windpipe or the iugular
veins, and could even sustain a weight
of $50 pounds in addition to that of his
own body.
On three separate occasions Harm
shaw mismanaged the rope, and be-
came unconscious, being luckily res
cued each time. DR.. Chowne, who
" 1t can not be doubted that, as far as
sensation and consciousness are con-
cerned, Harnshaw passed through the
whole ordeal of dying; and, had he
been permitted to remain hanging I'M
til actually dead, he would have passed
oat of existence without further con-
seriousness"
Now, this man stated, not with par
ticular reference to either accident, but
as common to all, that g he could hard
ly recollect anything that happened to
him in the rope; that g he lost his
senses all at once; the instant the rope
got in the wrong place he felt as if he
could not get his breath-as if some
great weight were at his feet; could not
move only to draw himself up; felt as
if he wanted to loosen himself, but
never thought of his hands" And he
added: g You can not move your arms
or legs to save yourself; you can not
raise your arms; you can not think"
He did not see sparks or light, but had
in his ears rafting sound.
All the evidence goes to show that
death by hanging is painless, and there
is positively no fact or well-founded
opinion to the contrary. If this be the
case, then, what is the explanation of
it? Simply this That in every form
of strangulation the blood-vessels of the
neck are compressed, as well as the air.
passages. A large part of the blood is
returned from the head by the external
Jugular veins, which are very near the
surface, and in which the current can
be checked by slight pressure. Most
of the blood from the brain itself comes
back through the internal jugulars,
which lie near, but a little outside of,
the carotid arteries. The walls of veins
are lax and yielding, so as to be easily
compressed, while those of the arteries
are firm and elastic, and it requires
considerable force to approximate them.
Pressure, then, which is sufficient to
close the jugular veins, only crowds the
carotids little further inward, and the
blood is still poured through them into
the brain, whence it can not escape.
When this pumping process is going on
at the rate of seventy strokes a minute,
it is easy to understand how the en-
gorgement of the vessels of the brain,
in very brief time, reaches a degree
which causes insensibility. To explain
why this congestion causes unconscious
ness would involve technical discus
sion which would here be out of place.
1t must suffice to say that it does; so
that, as the cerebral congestion in a
hanged person brings on insensibility
within a minute, while the physical
agony of suffocation does not begin UNI
til later, it follows that the victim does
not feel any Of the pangs of asphyxia.
He first becomes insensible, with ac-
companying pleasurable feelings, from
cerebral congestion, and then is choked
to death while unconscious--Dr r. s.
Tracy, in Popular Science Monthly TOR
JuIy.