The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1888-02-10
death by Electricity.
TIE NKw METHOD OF EXECUTING CRIMINALS
THAT WILL PROBABLY TAKR THR PLACE OF
THR aALLows IN NKw YORK.

Discussions upon the subject of the in
auguration Of new method Of capital pun
ishmeut have been going on for some time
past In New York state. A writer In the
New York World OF last Sunday dilates up
on the evils Of the present system of execut-
ing criminals and argues In a clear and
lucid manner in favor Of death by electric
ity, the method that has been so much dis
cussed. Although the taking of Of Grim
inals by hanging Is not so painful manner
of execution as is generally thought yet
there are many instances OF bungling
which results in torture not contemplated
by the law. As he puts 1t, "Ropes break,
men are strangled or mutilated, the COM
munity is shocked, justice is upbraided
and sympathy goes to the malefactor. To
hang man and produce instant death is
| shown to be matter Of both skill and ex-
perience, and to find an executioner who
is expert is not always an easy matter"
Upon the subject of electricity he says:
Electricity is the swiftest and most certain
OF all possible means by which death may
be inflicted. Ninety-five feet second is
the estimated speed of nerve sensibihty.
Electricity travels 10000 miles in like
space Of time. The brain is paralyzed be-
| fore it can feel the shock, the victim Of the
current passes from life to death without
| knowing the blow. Obviously, there is a
twofold gain in this method. First II en-.
tirely prevents a mishap. The current
passes when the fatal joining Of the wires
occurs, and death is given. The distant
dynamo gives no sound the condemned
man may hear He is led to chair and
seated. One metallic conductor is placed
against the nape of the neck, salt water be-
init the current The other conductor Il
placed on top of the head, the hair being
wet or on either temple or both. The con
nection is then made and the man is dead
on the instant"
The writer also claims that the moral ef
fects upon other convicts would be much
better. He advocates having the time ol
execution concealed from the condemned
man and the execution secret as "the mora
effect of the death sentence is often destroy
ed by the excitement in the town in which
it is to take place, and by the exaltation Of
the criminal, who is for days the central fig
ure in the community. Maudlin sympathy
has an upheavsl in his honor; flowers, fruits
and dainties are pressed upon him; hyster
ical women throng to see him, and from be-
ing felon he is made hero, marty
and an example of Christian forttude and
forbearance." Then also, "to have the day
and the hour concealed from the dead man
would rob his last days of the melodramatio
interest they possess for his fellows in
crime and make the fate more terrible.
There would be no halo about the head OF
a felon who journeys to State prison mere
ly to be hurled on some unspecitied day
and unknown hour by swift and silent
agent out from the world he has offended
No boasts of dying game" no incidents
of his last day and last hours; nothing bu
his being swallowed up living by the grim
walls of the renitentiary and cast forth
again some day, dead
In conclusion he says: "Civillzation de
mands the life Of murderers as a messur,
of prevention. Most States which have
abolished it have had to return to it. 1t IL
a public necessity that murderers shoulC
die, but humanity demands that the meth
cd shall not be barbarous, the spectacl,
public nor the criminal apotheosized in hi
taking off. Electricity, applied in Slat'
prison, meets these requirements exactly.