From time to time people raise an outcry against the English mode of putting criminals to death, and there are many Englishmen who have a firm conviction that hanging is the very worst and most unscientific form of capital punishment. The prejudices of these people seem to be based on an utterly wrong idea of how an English execution is conducted, and I hope that the chapter dealing with my method will form the basis for a truer judgment.

Of methods of execution that have been suggested as substitutes for hanging, there are some which hardly deserve consideration, because there is no considerable number of people who would approve of them. The various methods of beheading are hardly likely to be ever in favour with Englishmen generally, for they want executions to be as free as possible from revolting details. The old headsman’s axe and block which are still to be seen in the Tower, are in themselves sufficient argument against a revival of their use. Apart from the fact that beheading under the best conditions is revolting, we must further consider that from the very nature of the office, the executioner who has to hack off his victim’s head must be a brutal and degraded man, and the chances are that he will not be so skilful or so careful as he ought to be for the performance of such a task. Even amongst races which are not so highly civilised as the English, and where it is easier to obtain headsmen of proportionately better standing, we occasionally hear of more than one blow being required to cause death, and such a state of things is very horrible. In China decapitation has been reduced to almost a science, and the Chinese executioners are probably the most skilful headsmen in the world. I have in my possession a Chinese executioner’s knife, with which the heads of nine pirates were severed in nine successive blows, and a terrible knife it is, and well fitted for the purpose. Yet even with such a weapon, and with the skill and experience which Chinese executioners attain from frequent practice, the blow sometimes fails, as was the case in one of the last batch of Chinese executions reported in the English newspapers.

Even the guillotine, which is often spoken of as the only perfect and certain method, has been known to fail, and we have cases in which the knife has been raised and dropped a second time before causing death. In any case, whether the guillotine, the axe, or the Chinese knife is used, and whatever care may be taken to render the death painless and instantaneous, there is a horrible mutilation of the sufferer that must be revolting to all sensitive people.

The Spanish and Spanish-American method of execution, by means of the garotte, has been much praised by some advocates of reform. The prisoner to be garotted is placed in a chair, to the back of which an iron collar is attached in such a manner that it can be drawn partly through the chair-back by means of a heavily weighted lever. When the lever and weight are raised the head can be passed through the collar, and by dropping the weight the collar is drawn tight and causes strangulation. This method is certain, but I do not consider it so good as the present English system of hanging, because death by strangulation is much slower and more painful than death by dislocation. In one form of the garotting chair this fact has been recognised, and an iron spike is placed immediately behind the neck, so that when the pressure is applied the spike enters between two of the vertebrÆ and severs the spinal cord. This I consider worse than our own system, because the iron spike must cause a certain amount of bleeding, which the English method avoids.

The American system of hanging, which has been recently superseded by electrocution, was but a slight modification of the ancient system of Jack Ketch, or the time-honoured method of Judge Lynch. In these older systems the convict stood upon the ground while the rope was placed round his neck, and the other end passed over the arm of the gallows, or the limb of a tree. Then the executioner and his assistants hauled on the other end of the rope, until the victim was swung clear off the ground and was gradually strangled. In the improved American method the place of the executioner was taken by a heavy weight which was attached to the rope and which rapidly ran up the convict to a height of some feet. In some few very extreme cases of heavy bodies with frail necks this may have caused dislocation, but as a rule strangulation would be the cause of death.

When the use of electricity for executions began to be talked of as a practical possibility, I naturally took much interest in the subject. As the result of all the enquiries I was enabled to make, I concluded that although electrocution—as the Americans call it—is theoretically perfect, it presents many practical difficulties. The experience of the authorities in the case of the wretched man, Kremmler, who was executed by electricity in New York, fully proves that as yet we do not know enough about the conditions under which electricity will cause painless and sudden death. When particulars of the method that was to be adopted for executions in New York were first published, I was with a small committee of gentlemen in Manchester who were investigating the subject. They made all arrangements for experiments to test the reliability of the method. Two animals were obtained that had to be killed in any case, namely, a calf and an old dog of a large breed. In the case of the calf the connections were made in the manner prescribed, and the current was turned on. This was repeated twice, but the only result was to cause the calf to drop on its knees and bellow with fear and pain, and the butcher at once killed it in the ordinary way with his poleaxe. When the shock was applied to the dog he fell down and seemed to be paralysed, but it was some time before life was extinct. The latest reports of American executions say that the deaths were instantaneous and painless, but the value of such statements is lessened by the fact of reporters being excluded. The total exclusion of the press at any rate seemed like an admission of the authorities that they had no confidence in the certainty of the method they were using.

Altogether, after a careful consideration of all the principal modes of execution, I am convinced that our English method as at present in use is the best yet known, because it is absolutely certain, instantaneous and painless.

It may be interesting to close this chapter with a list of the principal methods of execution in use in foreign countries.