Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1889-07-16
LANCASTER, PA, July ls, 1889.
A KILLING Agent,

There is judicial injury going on in
New York to determine whether cleo
tricity will kill. The state having de-
eided that its death penalty shall he
thus inflicted, the question has been
raised as TO whether it can I've done.
The question ought not to surprise us,
perhaps, because there is nothing that
we know or think we know that some
one will not deny to bo fact, if the
claim is thrust under his doubling nose,
and particularly if he has any interest
In the denial.
In this case there seems to lie selfish
y interest that is impelled TO show that
electricity is quite too harmless 10 kill :
and II is the electric light and power
interest. 1t wants to decline the
Job of Staying men sentenced to
death by the law. lest others
may feel constrained to avoid any
chance Of executing themselves, by de
clining to use the executing agency. The
companies perhaps also fear that the
eensibilities and preludices of men may
be aroused against electricity, us il
is now against the hangman and
his rope, and that these feelings,
combining with the conviction Of
the killing power Of electricity, will
retard its coming into general use in
the service of mankind. perhaps il
may may be that the companies are only
seeking 10 advertise their wares and to in
struct the people in their virtues. There
seem to be two electrical interests that
are at loggerheads, and seeking to outstrip
each other in public favor. The one
uses continuous and the other broken
contact and each Is trying to prove
that its rivals system is the best for the
use of the executioner, and consequent
ly the most dangerous for the public use.
To maintain these contentious we are
favored with great deal of testimony
about the volts of electricity that ma
chine can store and discharge, and the
volts that it will take TO kill about n
bridge of some sort that is calculated
to measure the force of these volts. aud
the degree of dryness or moisture that is
needed under or over or around about
the bridge to secure its proper service.
But we see no bridge provided upon
which the unscientific reader may cross
over TO the dry land of conviction upon
any o. tie matters involved in the con-
troversy, or to convince him that the
scientific witnesses know very much
more than he does about them For
they do not agree and il is plain case
Of differing doctors that leaves the profess
sional observer To remain steadfust in his
own opinions. II is gratifying To note,
however, that the witnesses do agree that
lightning will kill and that manufac-
tured electricity may kill but they re-
hise TO he unanimous in the opinion, as
we understand them, that electricity
can I've applied with certainty that il
will slay. One party could not kill
dog. though he thought he might have
done ii with the other fellows
machine he did not try Il, he
said, because he knew that If he
succeeded they would say that hc
-iis,-eLalready packed the canine, iammed
fun of electricity with his machine, and
that, II did not take much more from
theirs to finish the job.
About the only conclusion the public
can reach is that electricity is am un-
cobhoitspp tniiip 10 nallnic without
elk gloves and that it will be difficult
to tell whether the prisoners are exc
euted by 1t unless they are hung up for
a while TO see whether they have any
power Of revival, twill not do TO bury
them, because that IL the standard
method OF revival the earth, il seems,
carries Off the extra electricity after
while and brings TO life the apparently
dead subject. The use Of electricity in
executions would therefore bring us
back to the days when they hung up
their executed criminals, or at least their
heads, upon their outer walls, in testi-
mony that they had really been done TO
death. Such execution would hardly
accord with modern taste SO the proba-
bility is that electrical executions will
not for while come into general use.