EXECUTION BY ELECTRICITY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 256, 27 October 1881, Page 1

EXECUTION BY ELECTRICITY.

I Electricity^ and the uses to '**hich iti I .Li's been applied tfy/dcientifia men has! done much for the comfort and con-j venience: of society, and tha time per-! heps may not be far distant Vie a i omnibuses and cabs, trdnis and traius, | will be eeen ia streets or bo railway! lines, speeding along without either) horses or locomotive to draw them. Aj scientific German gentleman, who is besides a philanthropist, being. grieved to the bottom of his. sensitive heart at ihe suffering of condemned criminals who expiate tbeir crime either by the : guillotine or the rope, has reached the conclusion tbatjt wouil be muchmore humane to carry out the sentence of death by means 0 of an electric battery, the shock of which would kill instantaneously -., without the patient experiencing the slightest siiffering or even discomfort, Hfs invention has been tested in Germany, the result being that it is' pronounced decidedly ingenioue, whaiever may be ihe obj action^ oiade to the innovation with regard 'to its practical ilify. A German paper thus describes /the humanitarian apparatus : In s -bail* sat apart for executions an . . BJl&gorical statue of Justice is erected, /holding in one har^d a sword; in the other a pair! of scales. Is front of ; the ''statue tber'ej is a fauteuil, destined to b6 [ occopied by! .tbe condemned men. After sentetjee^ baa been p6S^ed,the ; Judge, (who would fulfil at the game time the duties of the publio executioner) lets a wand, wbich he iholds in bis right hand, fall into one of the sqales, iti oes dowo^-at tbe r same moment a .powerful electric battery! concealed in the 'statue is brought 1 intoi action, and this battery being connected! with ihe faitteuili its occupant is airook' desdas it by lightning: Experiments have been made on an ox, a horse, andj some dogs,, 'death in each, oa.Be. heing! inetaclabfcbus.; Morjeover, add? ibel journal from which we quolpy an accidental circumstaoce has proved the rapidity wiih'which human life is destroyed by the invention. A ocagietrate who witnessed the experiments having; gone too near the fauteuil, waa killed; on the epot before he had time to utter a scund or make a movement. The invention may be clever and its accessories artistic, but there is very little chance of i;s adoption as yet, and crimit^els must wait a while before being accommodated wiih an essy r chair, for tbeir execution. — London iitandardj • ijmiii nl ip— wgrtwv