ELECTRICAL EXECUTIONS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1899, 1 June 1889, Page 3

ELECTRICAL EXECUTIONS.

Final experiments have been made by the New York authorities to satisfy themselves as to the best means of executing condemned criminals by electricity. The first animal to leave his troubles behind him was a small white cur, weighing twenty-one pounds. One of the wires wis wrapped over some cotton waste saturated with water on his right front leg, and the other attached in the game way to the left hind leg. The alternating current at 700 volts pressure was applied for 10 seconds, and the animal died painlessly without noise or struggle. The second was a black mongrel Newfoundland, weighing ponnds. Connections were made on the middle of the forehead with a metal plate covered with felt, and upon the right hind leg. Eight hundred volts of alternating currents for 15 seconds killed him instantly. Two other dogs, weighing 60 and 35 pounds, were killed in the same way with the alternating current at 500 and 700 volts for 10 seconds. Four calves, approximately the weight of a man, were killed the same way at 800 volts pressure by contacts of from 15 to 20 seconds, An 830-pound horse then took the alternating current in the same way at 1000 volts pressure for 25 seconds, and died instantly. In every case death was instantaneous and without sound or struggle.