The Barrow Herald and Furness Advertiser. — 1869-08-21 (Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England)

THE THEORY OF HANGING. (Front the Pall Mall Gazette.) Whatever grounds may be urged for retaining or abolishing capital punishment, there is one question connected with the subject which hardly receives •the attention it deserves. Assuming that it is necessary to put an end to the earthly career of a certain class of criminals, that object is fully gained by the quickest and moat merciful means; we aro agreed that life should be extinguished without torture, and it is equally objectionable to kick the condemned man from time into eternity, so to speak. Now our own way of killing a criminal is by throttling him. Is this process unnecessarily painful or not? The general opinion of the community is that a criminal who is hanged suffers little if any pain ; that dislocation of the neck is ensured, and that thereupon sensation is at an end almost immediately. We read that the unhappy man was " launched into eternity," and as the launch was all over before respectable people were down to breakfast, we trouble ourselves little on the subject; and, indeed, it is by no means a pleasant matter for contemplation. Yet if we made ioquiry at Newgate we should find that of the many criminals executed at that prison during the last twenty years, perhaps only two or three have had their necks dislocated. The others have died of sheer strangulation. There is, therefore, good reason for believing that hanging is an unequal punishment. No doubt all executions seem alike, but that is because, since one miserable wretch a few years ago got his feet on to the scaffold after the drop had fallen, an ingenious and elaborate ajustment of leather straps was devised to prevent such ghastly accidents in future. • If those whose duty has compelled them to stand near the gallows on the occasion of many etecutions told us truthfully what really .happens, we believe they would give the following account. When the drop falls the culprit struggles violently for about three-quarters of a minute ; his head then drops on one side, he becomes motionless, and at this moment the reporters say he is "launched into eternity." Reporters are, however, liable to error, and never more so than on these terrible occasions, when the account of the closing scene is generally written beforehand. Though the.man is motionless, the end is not yet ; the culprit, reviving from his faint, returns again to time from eternity, and the violent heaving of his chest shows the fearful nature of a second struggle, which would be evident to all but for the happy thought of the straps. This second agony varies in duration very much accordiug to the manner in which the executioner has exercised his skill; but its average duration is about two minutes, measured by our time. We believe this to be a fair account of what takes place at most executions. The details, of course, vary according to the dexterity of the hangman. People would be horrified at the suggestion, but there can be no doubt that few officials snore require a certificate from the Civil Service Ournmissioners than the executioner. The slightest error in adjustiug the noose, any miscalculation in the length of the drop, may make the suffering tenfold greater in one case dish in another. The truth ' is, we apprehend, that hanging, even when skilfully performed, is but a barbarous tuode of . putting an end to life,and, unskilfully performe.l, there is reason to fear that it becomes positive torture • and moreover, the mere difference in , the weight of the culprits renders it at all times an unequal punishintait. Heavy murderers escape much of tho pain we inflict t»i lighter villians. Now that executions are no longer conducted in publie,. and the faults in our ' system, if faults them be, may remain concealed within the prison walls for an indefinite time, , might it not be advisable to consider whether our mode of execution is really the best one ' possible? Might not this very method be . rendered almost painless by one of the many agents known to modqrn medicine 3 Suppose that dreadful white calla were at the last moment drenched with chloroform, for instance?  AGED Fl