Weekly independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 1887-1914, 1910-12-30
CAPITAL PENALTY

WOrlu, SOME OF tnem tinSeu Win
the cruelty of the dark ages.
Morocco is perhaps the most
medieval country in existence.
Flogging to death is still in vogue.
IT is not so very long ago that
Mulai Hand had the Shereef
Kittain executed in this horrible
fashion.
The ameer of Afghanistan has
peculiar methods of making the
punishment fit the crime. A baker
for selling short weight, was roastd
in his own oven, and a mar who
had started a scare that the Russians
were advancing on Kabul was
placed on a stool fastened on top
of a tall pole and kept there on
sentry go till he died of sleepless-
ness and exl austion.
Political crimes are not un-
common in Persia land the
revolutionists when caught, are
dealt with summarily. Four
co~nspirators who were recently
caught in the act of Throwing a
bomb in the crowded bazaar at
Teheran were hanged and quartered
in the same fashion that prevailed
in England up to the seventeenth
century. The remains of the
wretched men were hung at the
city gates as a horrible warning.
Austria is the only country
which employs this particular
method of execution, but Spain's
garrote is very similar. The
original method of %garroting was,
in fact nothing but strangIing,
The criminal was seated on a chair
fixed to a post, a loop of rope was
laced e~ncircling his neck and the
post, and by means of a stick or
cudgel Spanish garrote) inserted
between the post aid the condemned
mans neck the cord was frightened
until stranguiation ensued.
The modern garrote consists of
a brass collar containing a sharp
pointed screw. The executioner
turns the screw. and its point
penetrates the spinal marrow,
causing instant death.
Every civilized country does it's
best nowadays to make the dread
full task of execution as rapid and
painless as possible. Hanging as
at presnet performed is a very diff
erent matter from what it used to
be in England.
Till nearly the end of the eight
eenth century the condemned man
~as AIDE to stand in a cart with
a rope arounu his neck, and the
car was then driven away from
under him. In 1888 parliament
abolished this practice as being
barbarous. and a platform was
substituted for the cart. In 1874
this method was improved by
proportioning the length of the
drop to the weight of the body.
The state of New York in
augurated the electric chair many
years ago. but its only advantage
over hanging is that the MAJ who
switches on the current is out of
sight of the death chamber and so
escapes the grewsome title of
public executioner.
Formerly all criminals in England
died by the ak. and undoubtedly
the ak in the hands of a skiIful
headsman was as merciful an
instrument of death as any which
exist today. In Prussia dCcapita-
ton by the AK is still the recognized
method of execution, but he rest
OF Germany follows the example of
France and uses the guillotin.
Execution had almost become
obsolete in France until public
sentiment was so aroused by the
ever increasing number of brutal
murders that in January. 1909.
the widow, as the French term the
instrument, was dragged out of it's
retirement and four miscreants
were publicly executed at B,thune.
in the north of France.
The guilotine was invented Inv
a doctor named Guillotine more
than a century ago, but IL is not
true that the inventor fell a victim
to his own device. He died quietly
in his bed. The guilotine consists
OF two upright posts grooved on the
inside. An immensely heavy ard