Execution

“ I burst into tears, and wept long, unrestrainedly; for I too was young; in my heart there was a flood of pent-up tenderness, and here I was, on this perfumed, moonlit, starlit night, crouching in a dark corner, meditating murder!
No, not murder, an execution. Has my stepfather deserved death? Yes. Is the executioner who lets down the knife on the neck of the condemned criminal to be called an assassin? No! Well, then I shall be the executioner and nothing else. ”

“ The lawful execution of a small number of human beings, condemned to death by a fully qualified court of justice according to the strict letter of a penal law which had previously been solemnly proclaimed, and which each one of the victims was perfectly free to avoid transgressing—to call such an execution a hundred times more abominable than the horrible act of the parents who cast their children into the flaming arms of Moloch! ”

“ They know that they are fated for a hasty trial, a drumhead decision, and to be shot at dawn. The prospect of that walk through the early morning dews to the execution-ground made their shoulders droop along with their spirits. ”

“ I confess that they did not affect me as they seemed to affect most of my colleagues. An execution, with the violent thrusting of a human soul into the unknown, moved me deeply; but the physical punishment of a ruffian who had himself inflicted atrocious suffering upon some innocent person seemed to be such well-deserved retribution that even the coward's shrieks for mercy made no impression upon my nerves; and yet I have seen reporters who could laugh and joke at an execution faint at the flogging of a garrotter. So differently are human beings constituted! ”

“ Would any envy a man going to execution because he saw him in a prison nobly feasted, and nobly attended, and bravely courted? or because he saw him go up the ladder with a gold chain about his neck, and a scarlet gown upon his back? ”

“ Now, let us consider that the act of execution, supported by the eager looks of the people, does not correct them or instruct them but only hardens their hearts; let us suppose that the execution takes place in the prison, with priest and executioner as sole witnesses ”

“ His execution was witnessed by an immense crowd, and his last speeches and prayers were broken by a wretch who had climbed upon one end of the gallows in order to interrupt and deride the unhappy man. ”

“ We willingly concede that a public execution is not an edifying spectacle. The coarse minds who can endure, and who court it, are the last to whom such a spectacle should be presented. And, although the punishment might lose some portion of its terrors, we should prefer that the execution should take place in a more private manner ”

“ It has been done. There is a case of a judge who sentenced a man to death and allowed the execution to take place, notwithstanding that he—the judge—had actually seen the murder committed by another man. ”

“ It was upon a false notion of humanity that the House of Commons proceeded, when it prolonged the interval between the sentence of a murderer and the execution. The merciful course in all cases would be, that execution should follow upon the sentence with the least possible delay.
“Heaven help the man, says a goodnatured and comely reader who has a ring on the fourth finger of her left hand,—Heaven help the man! Does he compare marriage to hanging, to a dose of physic, and to a plunge over head and ears in cold water?” ”

“ Doing a thing by law, or according to law, is only carrying the law into execution. And punishing a man by, or according to, the sentence or judgment of his peers, is only carrying that sentence or judgment into execution. ”

“ The notion that there is something impure and defiling, even in a just execution, is one which may be traced through many ages; and executioners, as the ministers of the law, have been from very ancient times regarded as unholy. ”

“ Prisoner at the bar, you have been convicted of the crime of murder, and one of the most heinous ever committed, but it is no part of my office to dwell on the enormity of your guilt. It is my only duty to pass upon the sentence of the law, and that sentence is—That you be taken to the prison from whence you came, and then to the place of execution, and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May the Lord have mercy on your miserable soul! ”

“ In an attempt to bring executions in line with our evolving standards of decency, we have adopted increasingly less painful methods of execution, and then declared previous methods barbaric and archaic. ”

“ It has been found that the numbers of executions every year increase: and what is the cause of this, if not that the populace of great towns are become now so accustomed to the sight of death that they attend the execution of a felon, as a farce at which they laugh or applaud, just as he may show more cowardice or courage? ”

“ But taking into consideration that the public eye would be offended by so dismal an exhibition, I am disposed to agree that your sentence shall be put into execution in the usual way, but unaccompanied by the statutory attendant of the punishment of the crime of murder—viz., that your body should be publicly dissected and anatomised, and I trust that if it ever is customary to preserve skeletons, yours will be preserved, in order that posterity may keep in remembrance your atrocious crimes. ”

“ No man can express the surprise of the physician, when he heard the sentence of death pronounced against him. Sir, says he, why would your majesty take away my life? What crime have I committed? I am informed by good hands, replies the king, that you come to my court only to attempt my life; but, to prevent you, I will be sure of yours. Give the blow, says he to the executioner, who was present, and deliver me from a perfidious wretch, who came hither on purpose to assassinate me. ”

“ When the Day of Execution is come, among extraordinary Sinners, and Persons condemned for their Crimes, who have but that Morning to live, one would expect a deep Sense of Sorrow, with all the Signs of a thorough Contrition, and the utmost Concern ”

“ The matter which requires the greatest attention in connection with an execution is the allowance of a suitable drop for each person executed, and the adjustment of this matter is not nearly so simple as an outsider would imagine. ”

“ Suppose you had been active in the prosecution of one of your fellow creatures, and the prosecution should have terminated in the execution of the accused, how would it try your feelings for your neighbours to come and tell you, that you had been the murderer of a good and innocent man? ”

“ In some cases criminals are brought directly from the judgment-seat to the execution ground on receiving sentence, but as a rule the condemned persons remain in prison ignorant of the date of their doom, till an official, carrying a square board with the names of those who are to die that day pasted upon it, enters and reads the names of the doomed. ”

“ Upon the morning of the execution, there is great excitement in town. The execution is a fearful spectacle, for the firing has to be repeated more than once before the unfortunates are pronounced dead. ”

“ When the youth was led forth to execution, he excited the commiseration of many, and through excess of grief was observed to shed bloody tears, and to discharge blood instead of sweat from his whole body—a circumstance which many regard as a certain proof that Nature condemned the severity of a sentence so cruelly hastened, and invoked vengeance against the magistrate himself, as therein guilty of murder. ”

“ Technically, the word is used in law in the execution of a deed (its formal signing and sealing) , an execution (see below) by the sheriff’s officers under a “writ of execution” (the enforcement of a judgment on a debtor’s goods) ; and execution of death has been shortened to the one word to denote Capital Punishment (q.v.) .
Civil Execution may be defined as the process by which the judgments or orders of courts of law are made effectual. In Roman law the earliest mode of execution was the seizure, legalized by the actio per manus injectionem, of the debtor as a slave of the creditor. ”

“ Execution seldom or never immediately follows the sentence, but the sentence is that the prisoner be remanded to the place whence he came, and that he be there imprisoned until the day fixed for his execution, which shows that the term of imprisonment from the date of the sentence to the time of execution is an essential part of the sentence. ”

“ An execution is looked upon abroad as a serious affair; but with us it is quite another matter. Capital punishments, whatever they may be to the sufferers, are to the spectators, if we may judge from their behaviour, little else than capital jokes. ”

“ If the only purpose of the time allowed between sentence and execution is to admit of conversion and a preparation for heaven, it is fair to ask of anyone who wishes to continue the present system, whether it serves the purpose. ”

“ If a man commit murder by the hand of another, he shall be tried in the same way as in the cases previously supposed, but if the offender be a citizen, his body after execution shall be buried within the land. ”

“ The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind, and from that point of view he was no mean traitor, but his execution was a hole-and-corner affair. ”

“ Many reasons ought to have induced you to let justice take its course, and give the example of an execution which would have produced the excellent effect of preventing many crimes by the terror which it would have inspired. Public officers are murdered in the middle of the night—the murderers are condemned. ”

“ Public executions are very simply carried out. The criminal is taken to the spot on a horse, and when he arrives, is bound, and made to kneel on the ground over a hole which is to receive his head. The executioner, who uses the “ken” above named, arranges the culprit’s head in the proper position, and, apparently without any effort, decapitates the man with a blow. The old traveller Purchas very neatly expresses the mode of execution by a single word. ”

“ We will begin with the murderer, who wantonly embrues his hands in the blood of his fellow. So far as he has violated the laws of his country, he is a subject for public execution, and has nothing to hope for, at the tribunal of human justice. ”

“ The fundamental question being thus decided for the retention of capital punishment, the mode of execution came next into discussion, and on the 3rd of June, 1791, the following article was proposed:—
"Every criminal condemned to death shall be beheaded [aura la tête tranchée] ." ”

“ They are present to the accused brought before the tribunal, they inspire every just sentence, they give it authority in the soul of the condemned, and in that of the spectator, and they consecrate the employment of force necessary for his execution. ”

“ The fact that an unforeseeable accident prevented the prompt consummation of the sentence cannot, it seems to us, add an element of cruelty to a subsequent execution. There is no purpose to inflict unnecessary pain nor any unnecessary pain involved in the proposed execution. ”

“ The various old brutal ways of execution were adopted sometimes to strike terror, sometimes for vengeance, sometimes from horror of the crime, or even from 'conscientious scruples';—which last were the excuse for preferring the burning of heretics to any sort of bloodshed. ”

“ When it was formerly the Fashion to husband a Lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary Emergency, it generally did Execution, and was not a little serviceable to the Faction that made use of it; ”

“ Far better would it be if, in the few cases for which death ought to be inflicted, the execution were to take place within the walls of the prison, none being present except the proper officers, the clergyman, and those persons whom the sufferer might desire to have with him at his departure. ”

“ Ordered that these Sentences be put into Execution upon thursday the eighth [5] day of September next between the hours of one and five of the Clock in the Afternoon.
Warrant issued Sep. 6. 1755.
[Writ of execution, or death-warrant.] ”

“ Ask those who, like the proprietor, started this matter, and those who, like the judges, handed down a formally legal, but obviously unjust decision, and those who ordered the enforcement of the decree, and those who, like the soldiers, the policemen, and the peasants, will with their own hands carry it into execution,—who will beat and kill their brothers,—all of them, the instigators, and the accomplices, and the executors, and the abettors of these crimes, and all will give you essentially the same answer. ”

“ We were immadiately found guilty, an' sentence o' death was pronounced. We were marched on the minute to the place of execution: it was in front o' the house where the murther'd body lay, an' the gallows had been erected before the thrial.
“Great God! as we stood undther the fatal bame what was my feeling! ”

“ In expiation of which crime it has been ordered by the Court that the said women shall be presently conducted, with halters about their necks, to the usual place of punishment, and shall there be fastened by the Executioner to a gallows, and be hanged, strangled, killed, and burnt, until their flesh and bones are reduced to ashes, and the ashes shall be scattered ”