ELECTRICITY AS AN EXECUTIONER.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 115, 6 May 1876, Page 4

ELECTRICITY AS AN EXECUTIONER.

[From tbe Scientific American.] The revolting scenes accompanying the execution of several criminals in America, are well calculated to bring to publio notice the disadvantages of hanging as a mode of capital punishment. The teaoh ings of science are heeded and sought for in the building of prisons, in the management and care of convicts, and in every modern correctional system ; and yet in so simple and easy a prooess as the extinguishing of human life they are utterly ignored. f " The most certain and painless death known to science is caused by the lightning, stroke, or by, what amounts *o the same thing, tbe electric shock. When a powerful discharge of electricity id received into the body, existence simply stops, and tbe reason is obvious. Helmholtz has proved, that for any vibration which results in seneat ion to reach tbe brain through the nerves, one-tenth of a second of time is required. Furthermore, time is also needed for the molecules of the brain io arrange themselves through the effect of vibration, through the motions and positions necessary to tbe completion of consciousness, and for this an additional period of one-tenth of a seoond is expended.' Consequently, if,' fdr example, we prick our finger with a pin, it takes two-tenths of a second for us to feel and recognise the hurt! It can easily be conceived, therefore,, if an injury is inflicted which instantly unfits the nerves to transmit the motion whioh results in sensation, or if the animating power is suddenly suspended by an injury to the brain before the latter completes conscious- ; ness, then death inevitably follows with no intervention of sensibility whatever. a rifle-bullet, which traverses the brain in the one-thousandth of a B'econd, manifestly must cause this instant stoppage of existence, and proof of this is found in the placid faces of the dead, and in tbe fact tbat 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 a rifle ball is slow beside the electric shock.* 'Persistence of vision impresses b, lightning flash on the retina for one'•sixth of a. second, but iis actual duration j is barely one hundredth-thousand of a : second. : The effect of the shock on the system is excellently described by Professor Tyndall, who while lecturing before 1 a large audience, inadvertently touched the jwire leading from fifteen charged Leyden jars, and received the whole of the oharge through his body. Luckily the shock was not powerful enough to be fatal; but as the lecturer regained his senses, he experienced the astonishing, sensation of 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 opinion that " there cannot be a doubt thaf, to a person struck by lightning, the passage from life to death occurs without consciousness being in the least degree implicated. It is an abrupt stoppage ' of sensation, unaccompanied by a pang." So much for the death which, by a suitable alteration of the law we would bave substituted for alow strangulation. The next point is its practical accomplishment. - : Inßtead of building a gallows and providing rope, the sheriff, advised by a competent electrician, would procure a powerful Rhumkorff coil and a heavy battery. These instruments would rarely need replacing, and would last indefinitely, for other executions. The battery and coil should be of sufficient strength to deliver an 18-inch spark. In case of there being more than one person to be executed, all of the condemned would be conducted with all due ceremony to tbe place of execution, the left hand of one man handcuffed to the right hand of his ueighbor, and tbe conducting wire fastened to bracelets oh the disengaged wrists of both criminals, if only two are to be executed, or to tbe wrists of the outer men, if more than that number are to suffer. Tbe culprits being seated so as to be seen by the _ legal witnesses the sheriff presses a 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 a member of the police force, and specially charged with the duty, there would be no possibility of mistakes. The same ignominy which attaches to the gallows would be transferred to this mode of destruction, while tbe peculiar death by lightning, which, among the ignorant of all nations and ages, has been the subject of profound superstition, would, without doubt, through its very incomprehensibility and mystery, imbue the uneducated masses with a deeper horror.