THE PAIN OF BEING HUNG.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7782, 30 October 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE PAIN OF BEING HUNG.

Db. Taylor states that death from hanging appears to take place very rapidly, and without causiDg any suffering to the person. Professor Tidy also speaks of the painless nature of death from hanging ; while Professor Haughton, in his paper read before the Surgical Society of Dublin, says that the old system of taking a convict's life by suffocation is inhumanly painful, unnecessarily prolonged, and revolting to those whose duty it is to be present. Those who speak of the painless nature of death by strangulation, arrive at this conclusion from the tact that many cases of suicide are not completely suspended, and that if they wished they could easily relieve the constriction by assuming the erect posture; and in other cases of recovery from attempted suicide by hanging there is no recollection of any suffering. It should be remembered, however, that there lis a great difference between the mental i attitude of the suicide and one who is about Jto suffer the extreme penalty of the law. In tbe former case he is regardless, and perhaps also not very sensitive, of a little suffering, while in the latter every nerve is braced up to resist the inevitable result. Moreover, in those cases of recovery the loss of recollection of suffering does not prove that there was none. It might almost as well be said that, because in many oases of recovery from meningitis there was no remembrance of any suffering, therefore there was none. No doubt the pain in hanging can under no circumstance be very acute, yet when we see a culprit heaving his chest and almost raising the whole body in his struggles for breath, we must conclude that there is at least a considerable amount of mental torture.