DEATH PENALTIES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2206, 23 November 1920, Page 1

DEATH PENALTIES.

CUSTOMS L\ T MANY LANDS

You might suppose that it was a perfectly simple matter to hang a man, and that therefore the liluigmen in Germany who were on strike recently could easily be replaced, says a Daily Mail correspondent. Pacts go to show that execution by the rope is not a particularly easy affair, and that it requires considerable experience to give the exact length of drop required in different cases. *

Berry, who was responsible for about a hundred and sixty executions in this country, used to lest his apparatus over night with a bag of

sand of approximately the same weight as next morning’s victim. In any case hanging is not the usual form of execution in Germany. Prussia still retains the oldfashioned headsman with his axe and block. Brunswick, Oldenburg, and Baden have altogether abolished the death penalty, while in sumo parts of the country the guillotine is retained.

The only European country, borides Prussia, in which the axe is still the moans of capital punishment is Denmark. But it is a great many years since sentence of death was actually carried out in Denmark. Belgium, like Prance, uses the guillotine, but, as in Denmark, it is a very long time since the last execution.

The guillotine, by the by, which is supposed to have originated in Prance in I he year 1792, is nothing but a revival of (he engine called “The Maiden,” commonly used in Scotland in the fifteenth and sixteenth cent lilies.

Italy, Portugal, and Rumania have all abolished I lie death penalty. Curiously enough, Russia was the first country to take the lead in this respect. That was as long ago as 1750; but it was restored later, and thousands have since perished by beheading, hanging, or the terrible knout.

Spain still executes her murderers in public by means of the garotte. The garotte consists of a brass collar containing a screw, and when this is turned by the executioner (be sharp point pierces the spinal marrow, causing install I ancons 'death. Japan is more civilised in this d'nv eclion than Spain, for she hangs her criminals in private inside a prison. Many people are under (he impression that all criminals sentenced to death in the United States are electrocuted. In reality the “chair” is used only in New York, Massachusetts, ami Ohio. Elsewhere hanging remains the legal punishment.

At one time 1 hero was an agitation in certain Western Slates to allow a man sentenced to death to swallow poison.in his cell. But (he only country in which such a practice prevails is Morocco —one should say was Morocco —where, up to a few years ago, a man of high birth charged with treason might receive a gentle hint, in the shape of a cup of poisoned coffee. China decapitates her criminals. The executioner uses a sword, not an axe, and is proud of his ability to cut off a head with a single blow. Her Government has not yet abolished the lung ch'i or lingering flea lb. This, which used to consist of literally slicing the victim to death, has now been modified, and in practice only two or three cuts are inflicted before the fatal blow.