Visions of America: Public Representations of the United States Circulating in India from 1870-1900Main MenuVisions of AmericaRepresentations of America in India from 1880-1910IntroductionProject VisionIndian Newspaper ArticlesTimelineTags and TrendsTour content by major themesRadial VisualizationGrid VisualizationAdam Heidebrink-Brunodda1366ced630ae12c01119b6003cad348b8379cMareesa Miles07f5b1d62871cea403a104a2f291b405512e6016
Hanging has been so long the recognized mode of execution
12017-04-23T16:51:53-04:00Adam Heidebrink-Brunodda1366ced630ae12c01119b6003cad348b8379c822plain2017-04-28T12:15:08-04:00Mareesa Miles07f5b1d62871cea403a104a2f291b405512e6016Hanging has been so long the recognized mode of execution in all the English-speaking territories that the new departure introduced with the new year into the United States of America will, doubtless, be watched with much interest by the public and certainly by many scientists of the present time. From the 1st January our American cousins have, by law, abolished hanging in the "States," criminals in that free country being henceforth to be killed by electricity. Congress, however, in passing the law were unable to adopt any certain method by which this should be done--the thing not having been tested--but those who will be the first to be condemned to suffer the extreme penalty of the law in that country will undergo their punishment in the manner recommended by the Medico-Legal Society, the chief item in it being an electric helmet. The criminal, we are told, is to be strapped to a table or chair, the helmet put on, and an electrode arranged to touch his spine--the other pole of the battery touching the top of his head inside the helmet. A dynamo, generating an electro-motive force of at least 3,000 volts, will be in the next room. Then, when the circuit is closed, death may ensue in thirty seconds from either a continuous or alternating current. Whether the "electric helmet" will be a successful substitute for hanging, the present year will, in a measure, show. It is quite likely that the doubt about its working properly which some entertain, it being only an experiment--a very nasty novelty--and its privacy doing away with any idea of "cutting a figure" which, public executions started in the minds of the depraved, will tend to make those tempted to commit crime, reflect upon its consequences--this, in most cases, being what they do not do. The majority of the gravest offences are, it has been observed, committed without reflection. If, by substituting electricity for "the rope," the consequences of a crime be brought before the mind of the otherwise would-be criminal, we may fairly expect that the worst class of crime will sensibly diminish. In the United States, at any rate, the statements of the reckless about "swinging for anyone" are now obsolete and substitutes difficult to find--which may be a point gained; and tend to a better recollecting among the depraved of their "duty to their neighbour."