RE: [DL] Reckoners on Angel (OT, by now)

["Ashley Smith" <ratqueen13@hotmail.com>]

"Jeff Yates" <jyates@poboxes.com> wrote:

>When hanging _anyone_, always allow for enough of a drop to pop the guy's
>head clean off.

A little history on the development of hanging procedures.  In 1866, 
Reverend Samuel Haughton published his guidelines on calculating the proper 
distance to drop a criminal:

"Divide the weight of the patient in pounds into 2240, and the quotient will 
give the length of the long drop in feet.  For example , a criminal weighing 
160 lbs. should be allowed 14 feet drop."

However, this length of drop frequently resulted in decapitation, as 
executioners soon discovered. (So there's your magic number, guys!)  Also, 
such a tall gallows is not always practical.

So, in 1871, Dr. Baker of Melbourne recommended placing the noose around the 
neck of the criminal so that the knot lay just behind the ear, instead of 
directly over the spine, where it had been customary to place the knot.  
Thus, a drop of only 3 or 4 feet was necessary for instant death, since the 
placement of the knot actually broke the vertebrae (better living through 
physics!) and severed the spinal cord.  That unpleasant decapitation did not 
occur.  If executioners were worried about someone surviving such a short 
drop, he suggested placing weights on their feet.

Ashley
"My mother's obsession with the 'good scissors' always filled me with dread. 
Because I knew, somewhere in the house, there lurked the 'evil scissors'."

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