EXECUTIONS IN AMERICA.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2193, 13 January 1886, Page 2

EXECUTIONS IN AMERICA.

Some of the American States, havlpu aniious to follow the English syßSnlof private executions. The state of Ohio . has boeh the first to adopt a procedure which will no doubt soon bo enforced by tho other Government!. The English precedent has not been slavishly adopted. There have been modifications, and some » of them are decidedly advantageous, r Thus, instead of having overy gaol with' Its own place of elocution, there ia for the State of Ohio one prison to which •very condemned man is relegated, and where he suffers the extreme penalty of *h»»law. The execution is scarcely so" private as with us. Besides the. prison officials, the clergyman, the coroner, and two repots " of the two leading .news-' ■ papers of opposite politics published in the county that the sheriff thereof rjy/ desigMte," there are three other pers»iwho may be present, and who are seleeteT by the prisoner himself.. Another singular, provision is that the execution shal] take place, in every case, and no matter ib what season of the year, before the hour of sunrise. There is, to English mk. something almost unnecessarily this notion of hanging by gaslight.. '■ On . the other hand, the Ohio law ismore considerate to theieellhgs of the relatives. The body,, instead of being burned in quicklime within the walls of the gaol,, is handed over,-at the public exponee,' to the'friends of the murderqr; stipulated that. they must' express mi writing to the governor of the gaol'a'wish to that effect. '',-'.'.:•' ... ■.;; :