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In his testimony at the Kemmler hearings, the inventor had advised running the current from hand to hand and using jars of water as electrodes to prevent burning. In the wake of the four Sing Sing executions, the idea was revived. At Alfred Southwick's urging, Edison sent Arthur Kennelly back to the laboratory. In September 1891 Kennelly filled two jars with salt water and placed a zinc electrode in the bottom of each. He then took a two-foot-long piece of raw beef, placed one end in each jar, and sent 780 volts through it. Although the meat caught fire at a spot between the jars, Kennelly emphasized another observation: "The beef was not scarred or altered in appearance over the part that had been immersed in water."18

Kennelly warned Southwick in a letter that the skin of the prisoner's hands would offer more resistance than raw beef, but he nonetheless concluded that it would be "almost impossible to burn the skin" if liquid electrodes were used. Southwick replied, "Allow me to thank you personally and also Mr. Edison through you." The new electrode arrangement, Southwick wrote, "will fully settle the question of electrocution. It will remove all the unsightly part of an execution (scalding)."19

Southwick thought the new method would be used in the execution of convicted murderer Martin Loppy, who exhausted his appeals in October and was scheduled to die in December. For unknown reasons, however, the authorities chose not to adopt the liquid electrode plan. When Loppy was strapped into the Sing Sing chair on December 7, the electrodes were affixed to his forehead and calf, as they had been for the last four victims. As at the last executions, the warden swore all witnesses to secrecy, but this time a few broke the silence and revealed that Loppy's execution had been horribly bungled.20

Loppy's death created another sensation in the press and provoked calls for a repeal of the electrocution law. At the very least, the editors wrote, the press needed access to the death chamber, because only with clear information could the public judge the method on its merits. Press opposition to the gag law had intensified the previous summer, when Manhattan's district attorney indicted the Herald for violating the law by printing details of the four executions at Sing Sing. The other newspapers charged that the district attorney was playing favorites; they wanted indictments, too, because self-righteous defense of the First Amendment made good copy. The district attorney obliged by indicting all but one of New York's morning papers. As it turned out, the indictments were moot. Governor Hill—the man who signed the electrical execution act into law—left office at the end of 1891, and the new governor came out in opposition to the gag law. An obliging legislature repealed it in early February.21

The press thus gained access to the death chamber just in time for the execution of Charles McElvaine, which was set for the morning of February 8, 1892. Given the outcry at Loppy's fate, state authorities decided to try Edison's electrode arrangement. Arthur Kennelly was on hand as a witness. Before the prisoner entered the room, Dr. MacDonald explained the motive behind changing the position of the elec-trodes: "Eminent electricians—Mr. Edison in particular—have publicly expressed their opinion that contact should be made through the hands." McElvaine entered the room and sat in the newly designed chair, which had a wooden basin of salt water suspended from the end of each arm. McElvaine's arms and wrists were strapped down such that his hands were fully immersed in the water. MacDonald hedged his bets by attaching a backup pair of electrodes in the usual spots on the head and calf.22

Upon Edison's suggestion, New York officials attempted to use liquid hand electrodes in the 1892 execution of Charles McElvaine at Sing Sing. This illustration from the New York Medical Journal is inaccurate: As a backup, the executioners also attached electrodes