• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 990 0

and an electrode descending like a shower head from the ceiling. In an illustration accompanying the article, a man—barefoot and with trouser legs rolled, as if ready for a walk on the beach—stands in the hut, ready to receive the current from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. If shocked while in a standing position, he would fall in a heap to the ground. This might do for horses and dogs, but it would rob a human execution of its proper solemnity. The writer therefore proposed that "spring locks" be attached to the hut and closed around the prisoner's neck and limbs to keep him upright. Another New York electrician advised standing the victim on a metal plate, with his hands stretched above his head and attached to wires, in the position of a scourging victim. The current would run from the floor plate to the hands, and "the body would be prevented from falling by the wires." Neither of these arrangements would have prevented the prisoner from foiling the execution by lifting his feet off the floor.5

The chair offered an easier solution. In an early proposal for electrical execution, published in Scientific American in 1873,writer advised placing the prisoner in a chair, and a German writer offered the same idea a few years later. Alfred Southwick—perhaps inspired by his professional experience with dental chairs—advocated a chair from the start, although he changed his mind about what form it should take. Interviewed late in 1886, Southwick explained that a floor plate under the seated prisoner's feet would serve as one electrode, while the other, a metal rod, would be "brought in contact with the back of the neck over the spinal column." Upon further consideration, however, Southwick came to believe that "an arm-chair, with metal arms, would be more convenient. The condemned would be seated in the chair and, at the proper moment, receive a full electric charge through the metallic arms." Another year passed, and Southwick changed his mind again. The death penalty commission report recommended "a chair, with a head and foot-rest, in which the condemned could be seated in a semi-reclining position; one electrode would be connected with the head rest, and the other with the foot-rest, which would consist of a metal plate." Others suggested a chair with metal plates adjustable to each side of the torso, or with two metal bands, one to fit around the neck, another around the chest.6

One scientist suggested that criminals be executed in an electrical hut, with the current running between its metal-lined floor and an electrode descending from the ceiling to the victim's head.

All of these plans involved applying metal electrodes to the skin. When current encountered skin, which had a high resistance, some of the electrical energy was transformed into heat, which caused burning. At the Edison laboratory experiments, copper wire electrodes were wrapped around wet cotton to lower resistance, and Dr. Frederick Peterson adapted this idea for use on humans. He advised wrapping the electrodes in "a sponge or chamois skin, thoroughly wet in order to prevent burning."7

There was also the question of restraint. When Harold Brown was asked why he experimented upon dogs rather than cats, he replied, "Because the cat is very apt to wiggle around when you attempt to apply the electrode, and they also have claws." If the condemned man behaved less like a dog and more like a cat, the authorities would have trouble executing him. In his earliest public statements on execution, Thomas Edison proposed that manacles double as electrodes. "No matter what position the prisoner took, nor how much he twisted and turned, whether he stood or sat down, he could not escape the shock," Edison explained. In its 1888 report, the Medico-Legal Society noted the "unseemly struggles and contortions" that marked many executions and advised proper restraints: "A stout table covered with rubber cloth and having holes along its borders for binding, or a strong chair should be procured. The prisoner lying on his back, or sitting, should be firmly