Year: 1876

The Right EXecutlOner.


The revolving scenes accompanying
the execution of several criminals in
this vicinity are well calculated to bring
to public notice the disadvantages of
hanging as a mode for capital punish


ment.


The teachings of Science are needed
and sought for in the building of pri-
sons. in the management and care OF
cnnvicts, and in every modern correc
tiunal system; and yet in so simple and
easy a process as the extinguishing of
human life, they are utterly ignored.


The most certain and painless death
known to science is caused by the light
ming stroke, or by, what amounts to the
same thing, the electric shock. When a
powerful discharge of electricity is re-
ceived in the body, existence simply
stops, and the reason is obvious. Helm
holtz has proved that. for any vibration
which results in sensation TO reach the
brain through the nerves, one tenth of a
second of time is required. Furthermore,
time is also needed for the molecules of
the brain to arrange themselves through
the effect of that vibration, through the
motions and positions necessary to the
completion of Consciousness, and for
this an additional period of one tenth of
a second is expended. Consequently. if,
for example, we prick our finger with a
pin, it takes two tenth- of second for
us to feel and recognize the hurt. 1t
can easily be conceived, therefore, that
if an injury is inflicted which instantly
units the nerves to transmit the motion
which results in sensation, or if the an
imating power is suddenly suspended by
an injury to the brain before the latter
completes consciousness, then death in
evitablv follows with no intervention of
sensibility whatever.


Now rifle bullet, which traverses the
brain in the one thousandth of a second,
manifestly must cause this instant stop
page of existence. and proof of this is
found in the placid faces of the dead,
and in the fact that there is nothing
more common than TO find men lying
dead on battle fields, shot through the
brain, but with every member stiffened
in the exact position it was in when the
bullet did its work. But rife ball is
slow beside the electric shock. Persist
ence of vision impresses a lightning
fash on the retina for one sixth of
second, but its actual duration is barely
one hundred thousandth of second.


The effect of the shock on the system
is excellentiy described by Professor
Tyndall, who, while lecturing before
large audience, inadvertently touched
the wire leading from Is charged Leyd-
Ell jars, and received the whole discharge
through his body. Luckily the shock
was not powerful enough to be fatal; but
as the lecturer regained his senses, he
all his members being separate and
gradually fastening themselves together
He says, however, that life was blotted
out for a sensible interval" and he
dwells with much stress upon the opin-
ion that "there cannot be doubt that,
10 a person struck by lightning, the
passage from life to death occurs with
ont consciousness being in the least de-
gree implicated. 1t IS an abrupt stop
page of sensation, unaccompanied by a
pang." So much for the death which,
by suitable alteration of the law, we
would have substituted for slow strang-
nlation. The next point is its practical



Instead of building a gallows and
providing rope, the sheriff, advised by a
competent electrician, would procure
powerful Ruhmkorff coil and heavy
battery. These instruments would rare
ly need replacing, and would last inde-
6nite1y for other executions. The bat
terry and coil should be of sufficient
strength to deliver an eighteen inch |
spark. In case of their being more than
one person to be executed, all of the |
would be conducted with all |
due ceremoney to the place of execution
the left hand Of one man handcuffed to |
the right hand of his neighbor, and the |
wire fastened to bracelets on
the disengaged wrists of both criminals,
if only two are to be hanged, more than |
that number are to suffer. The culprits
being seated SO as to be seen by the legal
the sheriff presses button.
The current is instantly established from
the coil, passes through the bodies of the
men. and all is over. With a competent
electrician, who might be member of |
of the police force, and specially charg-
ed with the duty, there would be no
of mistakes. The same ign
ominy which attaches to the gallows
would be transferred to this mode of
destruction, while the peculiar death by
which, among the ignorant of
all nations and ages, has been the sub
ject of profound superstition, would
without doubt, through its very incom-
prehensibility and mystery, imbue the
masses with a deeper horror


"That's HOww


After a great snow storm, little fell |