The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-08-07
THE ELEorKocUTIoN OF KEmmLER.

Electrocution, as a substitute for hanging,
has not raised itself in public estimation by
the experiment at Auburn yesterday. The
ground on which it was recommended was
that it was less cruel-as being less pain
ful-than hanging Death, it was said,
was instantaneous, and the agony of the
sufferer was confined to the mental throeS
preceding the execution. But, as far as
the dispatches indicate, this theory is des-
titute of support. Death was not in
Simultaneous in the case of kemmler.
On the contrary, after a current OF 1900
volts had been cOursing through the poor
wretch'S body for eighteen seconds
an eternity under tie circumStances-he
still breathed, and continued to breathe
and his chest TO heave for two minutes,
when the electric fluid was again applied.
As 10 the pain endured we are left in doubt.
The doctors declare that Kemmer suffered
no pain after the first shock. But his nerve
centeTs and tissues were disintegrated by
the current. Unless sensibility was COM
pletely destroyed this process must have
involved the acutest degree of agony. Con-
sidering that it is an open question whether
man who is hanged suffers any pain after
the first tightening of the rope. the superb
ority of electrocution. in point of painless
ness, is at all events doubtful.
The partisans OF electrocution are aetua-
ted by humane instincts. which commend
themselves to the approval of all right
minded men. But, so far as the reports be-
fore US indicate, their theories have not
been borne out by the facts 1t may be
that Kemmler felt nothing after the cleo
trical current first struck him. But that is
not certain, and the doubt will probably
lead to repeal of the New York law. If
it be at all possible that Kemmler felt the
destruction of his tissues and his nervous
system by the pounding of the electrical
| current, electrocutiOn is a step backward,
| not forward.
| The subject Of capital punishment has
| occupied the public mind for centuries.
Among semi-civilized peoples it was thought
proper to make the punishment as severe
as possible in order to add to its terrors,
| hence the English sentenced assassins to be
| hanged, drawn and Quartered. and the
French bourreau tore regieides in pieces
by the aid of wild horses. These savage
punishments were never employed in this
country. On the contrary, in the lull of
politics half a century ago a party arose
which insisted that all forms of capital
punishment shonld be abolished. 1t ac-
cal elections. A reaction then set in.
opinion veered to the opposite extreme,
and well-meaning people argued that the
fault with our penal system was not that
we hanged too many criminals, but that
we did not hang enough. But it is little
remarkable that, though this branch of
! penology has been actively discussed for a
century OF more by all the civilized ma
tiOns, no change has been made by any of
them for a century or more in the form OF
! execution. The English and Americans
hang murdeTers; in France they are guilIo.
tined; in Spain they are garroted; in Rus
sla where capital punishment was nOmi-
nally abolished a century ago. heinous
criminals perish under the knOut. Most
nations are agreed that death should be in
ficted in such a way as TO cause the least
possible pain to the convict. But as
no one has ever come back from the grave
to describe his sensations while undergoing
death, either by the rope or the knife or the
bullet, each nation is free to insist that its
method is the humanest, and no one can
gainsay the assertion.
In one point the French excel all other
nations. French psychologists assert, prob
ably with perfect truth, that the chief
agony of the condemned is endured from
mental suspense while the preparations for
the execution are being made; that the
pain inflicted by the knife is nothing in
comparison to the torture which is caused
I by the preliminaries of the death scene.
Hence in France a condemned person never
knows when he is going to die. His first
intimatiOn Of the end is the appearance in
mis- cell. at gray dawn, OF the executioner
and his assistants, who swiftly take him from
his bed, dress him, bind him and hurry him
out to the guillotine. whose blade falls
almost before he is awake. The interval
between his summons from sleep and his
death is barely two minutes. In this coup-
try the preliminaries Of an execution cover
so long period that the condemned dies
thousand deaths before the rope circles bis
neck in its clutch.