San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-11-09
DEATH BY HANGING.
Some of Its Pleasures Depleted by DR.. liam.
m0nd.

]
Prof. q. M. Hammond, NJ. D., who
\ is instructor in diseases Of the mind
.ni nervous system in tho New York
POET Graduate Medical College. has
Contributed to the current number OF
tae New York .Isdicai Record au
elaborate dissertation on the proper
me,hoi of ex cusing the sentence of
death by hanging. He remarks that
on every occasion that the executioner
performs his duiy upon criminals sem
fenced 20 be hanged by the neck until
they are dead, the newspapers TEEN
with sensational accounts, headed by
the most agoniz.ng phrazes in large
letters, of the terrible sufferings the
executed individual is supposed to have
undergone. The hangman, il he does
not succeed in breaking or fislocating
she neck OF his victim, is held up to
the public execration asa bungler, and
Is accused of having slowly strangl.d
him, at the same time inficting much
unnece; sary suffering. These descrip'
tions harrow the minds of the tender.
hearted, and not oniy produce great
deal Of undeserved sympathy for the
condemned, but tend to disgust many
strong.minded and sensible people
with the death punishment. As one of
the consequences much ingenuity is
expended in devising means for in
surfing the disloc alton Of the neck, the
,6ea being entertained that II rnis Is
=, complished the executed prrsoL does
not w~'the or suffer, but dies w.lhont
muscular contractions aud without pain.
DR.. Hammond says there are two dis.
tinct ways of causing death by the exc
cution of individuals according to our
present methods:
AIN the first, which i, by far the
oldest, and which was the mode con-
templated when the punishment of
hanging by the neck wa, first adopted,
the subject is strangled. The air is cut
off from entering his lungs. The ves-
sells of the Neck, which carry the blood
to the brain and return it to the heart
after it has fulfilled its office, are vic
lently and suddenly compressed so
that the circulation is interrupted. In
early times the malefsctor who was
obliged to undergo this punishmer ,
stood on the ground, and with the
moose around his neck and the rope
thrown over the limb of a tree, was lift
up into the air and left hanging until
life was extinct.
AT later period he stood on the
rung of a ladder placed Immediately
under the gallows, and at the critical
moment was pushed off by the execu-
toner. Or he remained erect on the
cart in which he was driven from the
prison to TIE gallows, and at q given
signal the vehicle was driven away and
he was left hanging by the neck to the
beam above him. In the American
army this has been the method gener-
ally adopted when hanging has been
the punishment. Maj. Andre suffer cd
death according to this manner, and
during the Mexican war many desert
ers we're executed in similar WY.
Lynchers, who take the law into their
own hands, employ the cart, or. per-
haps, more frequently, throw the rope,
ono end of which is fastend around the
supposed criminals neck, over the limb
of tree, and then pull him from the
ground.
an Turkey and other eastern coun-
tries strangulation is effected by means
of the bowstripg. A loop is made in
the string attached to strong bow.
The victims neck is placed within it.,
and then the spring of the bow acting
upon the cord constructs the neck,
and death soon follows. Among the
ancient Jews loop of strong cord
was placed around the neck of the con-
demned, and then several pelsons
pulled at each end till life was extinct
AIN endeavoring to break the neck
of the person to be executed two meth.
DDS are employed. In the one he is
lifted suddenly and with force from
the ground while the rope is around
his neck. In the other he falls through
a trap suddenly sprung, aud is left
dangling in the air. By either of these
methods strangulation is effected with
more or less completeness, and some
times the second cervical vertibra is
dislocated and the odontoid process
pressing upon the spinal cord is sup
posed to cause instant death. The trap
! is said to have been the invention of a
London surgeon at the period of the
Restoration"
/ Prof. Hammond says that by the
New York method of jerking the body
into the air by releasing heavy
weight, it is rarely the case that the
neck is broken, and strangulation is
not neatly and expeditiously effected,
and he is clearly of the opinion that in
o.der to obtain spc ody and painless
death it is neither necessary nc de-
sirable that the neck should be dislo.
Gated. DR.. Taylor, the. calculated
English writer on medical jurispru-
dence, says: death from hanging APP
pears to take place very rapidly and