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Show LEGAL , SUICIDE. The Oregon Method of Executing Criminals. An Automatic Device by Which the Condemned Con-demned Launches His Own Soul Iuto Eternity Better thn Klectricity. Xot to speak lightly 6f a grave subject, sub-ject, Oregon Ims put the beer on her j murderers. The man who kills another ! and is convicted of murd er is sentenced i to death as in other states, but is made to hang himself. ' The hanging takes pla?e there amid all the lugubrious surroundings which are common to the death penalty elsewhere. else-where. The striking difference, we are informed, is iu the supreme moment rhe execution itself. Instead of the .-her iff, or some hired deputy, having to hang the culprit by springing a trap, touching a trigger, or driving oif a horse, the gallows is automatic and the victim is his own executioner. The hanging takes place, in the "execution room" of the jail, in the presence of fourteen persons certain designated olHcers. a spiritual adviser chosen by the prisoner, and a jury of six reputable citizens of the state. The reporters are not in it. A deputy warden named Dudley is the inventor of the hanging contrivance, which is said to beat electricity, elec-tricity, and is thus described by the Augusta Chronicle:1 As the prisoner enters the execution room and has lihished his consultation with his spiritual adviser, the black cap is placed over his head, the noose is adjusted, and he advances to a position on a small piece of carpet, about four feet square, which is placed directly in front of the fatal machine. While there is nothing suspicious about this carpeted carpet-ed spot, it is a small platform separated from the rest of the flxir. Below it rests on the end of a long lever, the opposite op-posite end of which is in an adjoining ad-joining room. In this adjoining room are two large pails. The upper pail contains about forty pounds of water, a rubber tube connecting it with the pail below and the water starting to flow at the opening of a valve. This pail of water is fastened to one end of a steel bar, at the other end of which is a thirty-pound ball of iron, held in its position only by the heavier weight at tlie other end. To this ball of iron is attached a rope passing upward and over a pulley into the wall, where a trigger holds a weight of two hundred and twenty-five pounds in position. This weight is also securely fastened with a rope, which seems to disappear over the ceiling. The other end of this rope is the end at which the condemned man is standing. Unconscious of what he is doing-, he steps on to this small bit of carpet. Ilis weig-ht moves the lever under the floor. By this the valve in the pail of water is opened. Noiselessly the water passes throuph the rubber tube into the empty pail. The ball of iron is released from its position. It jerks out the trir-frer trir-frer holding- tho heavy weight. This drops, and within thirty seconds from the time the man has stepped on to the carpet he is jerked into the air and his death is instantaneous. The prisoner is jerked about six feet into the air and falls back to alxrat three feet from the floor. In each of the four executions which have taken place the neck has been broken and there has appeared no sign of struggling. |