Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [40]
Southwick proved to his own satisfaction that electricity provided the most humane method of capital punishment, but he kept the results private for a few years. Then, in a speech early in 1885, New York governor David B. Hill stated that the "present mode of executing criminals by hanging has come down to us from the dark ages" and proposed that science could furnish a "less barbarous" method of execution. In those words, Southwick sensed an opportunity, because he believed that electricity was precisely the method Governor Hill sought. Southwick also had good political connections: His friend Daniel McMillan was a state senator. At Southwick's urging, McMillan introduced a bill in the state legislature to create a commission to investigate "the most humane and approved method" of execution. The bill, which passed the state legislature and became law in 1886, named three men to the commission, and one of them was Alfred Southwick.16
Southwick's fellow commissioners were Matthew Hale and Elbridge T. Gerry. Hale was an obscure Albany lawyer, but Gerry-chairman of the commission—was a man of note. The grandson and namesake of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Gerry moved in the highest circles of New York society. At the time of his appointment to the death penalty commission, he was commodore of the New York Yacht Club, and he was also a famous philanthropist. Gerry served as legal counsel to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and in 1874 he had founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the first organization of its kind in the world. He made frequent appearances in the pages of New York newspapers, presiding over regattas in Newport and staging raids on theaters employing child actors. Gerry was widely recognized as a humanitarian, and his presence on the panel lent considerable weight to the inquiry.17
Elbridge T. Gerry
The commissioners began their work by sending a circular to attorneys, physicians, and public officials, requesting their opinions on capital punishment. Elbridge Gerry hired a staff of nine assistants and set them to work in his private law library, poring over historical and legal books for information about execution methods.18
Southwick, meanwhile, had an opportunity to conduct further experiments. In the summer of 1887 packs of dogs roamed the streets of Buffalo, and the city council fixed a bounty of twenty-five cents for each stray brought to the pound. Local boys, quick to spot a business opportunity, rounded up dogs by the dozen and deposited them at the pound, which became overwhelmed. Concerned about the animals' welfare, the local chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals assumed operation of the pound, including the destruction of unwanted animals. The usual method, shooting, was rejected as cruel. The society instead tried asphyxiating the dogs in a carbon monoxide lethal chamber, but that proved unreliable.19
The SPCA then discovered that a citizen of Buffalo was already adept at dog killing and would be happy to share his expertise. On July 16 Alfred Southwick and a friend, the Buffalo physician George Fell, constructed a pine box, lined it with a zinc plate, and filled it with an inch of water. They ran an electrical line from the nearest arc light cable, connecting one pole to the zinc plate, the other to a muzzle with a metal bit. A small terrier was fitted with the muzzle and led into the box. The Morning Express reported what happened next: "A simple touch of a lever—a corpse." Twenty-seven more dogs followed. At its next meeting