Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1893 — Scientific Modes of Execution. [ARTICLE]

Scientific Modes of Execution.

to a boy's legs in hanging him, *so that the'drop will break his neck, is something that a New Jersey Sheriff has Just thought of,” said L. F. Dunn, of Philadelphia, to a St Louis Globe-Democrat reporter. “He is to'hang a youthful murderer who only weighs 92 pounds, and he says he will have to fasten ten pounds to each of the young fellow’s legs to furnish weight enough to dislocate his vertebra}. This sounds pretty inhuman, doesn’t it! But 1 once saw a heavy executioner in Turkey slide down the rope and fall on the neck with all his avoirdupois to break the spinal column. Of course, It was a barbarous proceeding. The most careful and conscientious executioner I ever saw was near the dividing line between Turkey and Russia. I was riding through some woods when I suddenly found myself Ip a clearing before a cabin. A man was at the door-tying a thread around a sheep’s neck. I asked him why he was doing that. He picked up a cleaver, and. with a quick blow, cut off tho sheep’s head, making the cut exactly along tho lino of the red thread. ‘You see now,’ •he said, J why,l did ft. I tied that thread between two Joints so that there would be no bone to offer resistance to the passage of the blade.’ ‘But why do you slaughter sheep in this way*’ I asked. ‘Como to-morrow to , (naming a near-by town) and you will see.’ I was in tho town the next day, and met the sheep-slayer. He was a public executioner, and he had a mao to behead that day. I saw him do it. He had a sword with a curved blade. The blade and hilt were hollow, and there was quicksilver In the space, so that when the weapon was held aloft the quicksilver ran down into the hilt and steadied the hand, but when the sword was swung down the quicksilver ran to the end of the blade and gave added weight and impetus to the blow." Tho doomed man knelt and bent his bead forward. The executioner tied, arj d thread carefully around the bared neck, and with one swing of the weapon cut off the - head. It was a clean, scientific cut between the vertebra', and the unfortunate man, I presume, neVer felt it.”