Executions are a necessary evil which cannot be abolished as long as we have crime. But, while we have the death penalty, it does not necessarily follow that we must continue the present methods. Although it is the duty of society to get rid of the people who endanger our existence, there is no sensible reason why executions should be conducted in such an ancient barbaric manner as we witness it every Friday throughout the country. Strangulation, particularly if the hangman is inexperienced, does not fit into our time. Yet, this condition prevails throughout the United States. And public hangings, especially, should not be permitted in this century. Executions should be performed unostentatiously. Only experienced persons should be chosen, so that the awful spectacles we witness in four out of ten hangings will not be repeated.

The Ohio legislature last year made a half-hearted attempt to remedy conditions by relegating hangings to the penitentiary, where the warden would be in charge of them. But the lawmakers of that State did not bring the matter to a conclusion. Reconsidering the unsettled question when the legislature [of Ohio] convenes again would be of greater benefit to that State than wasting time with party arguments.

The problem of substituting a more scientific method, and eliminating the rope, is now being considered in the East.

Henry Bergh, originator of the humane societies, believed that no public executions should be tolerated; he regarded them as cruel, demoralizing spectacles, more apt to induce crime than to prevent it. The guillotine, in his opinion, would make an execution a still more tragic and detestable matter. Bergh suggested using a fast-acting poison or gas which would kill a convicted criminal in an unsensational manner. Hydrogen would be piped into an airtight chamber, and the convict would fall asleep and die. On the evening of 3the execution the convicted man would go to bed, entirely unaware of anything. Gas would be turned on while he was sleeping and then he would not wake up again. Death by chloroform, as doctors have declared, would also be absolutely painless. People who were on the brink of death through over prolonged inhalation of chloroform could not, upon awakening, remember whether they had endured pain.

While Mr. Bergh expressed an aversion to execution by manual efforts, some scientists showed no such scruples. Professor William Darling of New York recommended piercing the neck to sever the spinal nerve, and Professor Draper, who had no objections to the guillotine, thought that executions should be entrusted only to capable men. Electricity appeared a suitable medium to both of the aforesaid erudite gentlemen, provided that satisfactory results could be obtained. Mr. Benjamin not only expressed the belief that a man could be killed easily by an electric shock, but even said that an electric apparatus, about as large as a trunk, could readily be constructed, and that this apparatus would develop enough power to kill more people than were ever 4hanged in the United States. According to Benjamin's statement, there was an electric apparatus at the Stevens Institute in Hoboken capable of producing sparks twenty-one inches long which could perforate glass plates of three-inch thickness. Even greater effects could be obtained by an apparatus at the Polytechnical Institute in London.

Obviously, there exists no dearth of methods to reach the goal, if it should ever be decided to replace our present barbaric custom with a more befitting procedure. Death by the rope is on a par with the obsolete thumbscrews, Spanish boots, and other medieval instruments of torture. A system in keeping with the spirit of modern times is highly desirable. It is only a question of which legislature will take the first step.