Painless Death.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 346, 3 September 1889, Page 4

Painless Death.

EDISON ON EXECUTIONS BY ELECTRICITY. Stbenvots efforts are being made in New York to break down the recently passed law fixing the death punishment by electricity instead of hanging. Under this law the first man sentenced was Kemmler, the Buffalo wife murderer. His counsel have appealed from the sentence on the ground that it is inhuman, in that death by electricity is not certain, and therefore to run risks of an experiment is cruelty to the man. On hearing expert evidence Thomas A. Edison, the wizard of Menlo Park, testified. He •aid that he had been inventing electric machines for twenty-six years. He was told that one of the witnesses against the electrocution had said he could easily take 100 volts and much more. Edison described this man as a Salamander. lie said the man was mistaken, and he would offer him 100 dol. if he would try the experiment in his presence. “ Can a man be killed instantly, painlessly and without burning by the electric current, Mr Edison ?” “ Yes he can.” “ What amount of electric energy is necessary to effect this result?” “ One thousand volts,” answered Edison, “ but I would use either an alternating current or continuous current interrupted by mechanical means. A continuous current does not seem to have much effect. For instance, one man would take eight volts and scarcely feel the current, but by interrupting that current he would indeed feel it” The witness described an experiment be bad once made upon a frog. He connected the hind legs of the frog with a telegraph wire running between Washington and New York. Every time a dot or dash was made the contortions of the frog were very violent. He had used only a fraction of the current. This frog was a “ gnlvenoeoopic ” frog, that Is, it had its skin stripped to show the muscles. Edison continued that he could burn up a man with 1,500 horse-power. “ Suppose you keep it up for five minutes on Kemmler ?” “ His temperature would be raised •bout five degrees above the normal •nd then he would be mummified.” “ Wbat form would you advise in criminal execution P” •‘That subjects should be placed with their hands in water containing potash.”