Public executions have always attracted large crowds of curious citizens. This was even truer in the pre-mass communication, pre-radio, pre-television era. When the most exciting forms of entertainment were traveling minstrels and circuses, executions were a favorite form of spectator sport. It was even required in some areas that everyone witnesses punishments in hopes that they would avoid breaking the same laws. History records huge crowds coming from great distances to see the final act of their fellow humans. Hangings, impalements, drowning, beheadings, burning people at the stake, drawing and quartering and disemboweling were horrible events. Carrying out these legal executions was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it. And most people weren't anxious to have the job. Sometimes other condemned prisoners had their own sentences commuted if they served as the executioners of their fellow condemned prisoners.
Since executioners were considered practitioners of the worst job on the planet, many of the people serving as the actual final instrument for carrying out the dictates of the judicial system, were ostracized by society. This book does a decent job of portraying the world of the executioner and details the lives of many of England's most infamous executioners. Since so many of these people didn't have any idea of what they were doing, it was a major breakthrough when some of the more sensitive executioners began to develop more humane ways to carry out death sentences. Eventually, these men devised scientific methods to instantly break their client's necks rather than letting them slowly strangle to death. Likewise for developing machines to instantly cut off heads rather than maybe having an executioner have to swing his ax or sword half a dozen times to complete his work.
The book is morbidly fascinating. The author did a good job of trying to stick with the facts and not editorialize on the subject of the death penalty. The author's bias against the death penalty does show up in the text occasionally and usually results in him making bleeding heart (no pun intended) conclusions that defy both common sense and historical fact. The book is still worth reading because it shows that humanity is definitely making progress and is at least trying to be as humane as possible in cases of capital punishment. It also introduces and discusses many fascinating historical characters on both sides of law. It's good to see that some high-minded individuals can make even the dirtiest job in the world more humane and scientific. Those were traits that many of the viewers of these macabre public events didn't really appreciate or desire. Many actually preferred long, drawn out shows and that morbid fact is why most executions are no longer major public events.
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Top reviews from other countries
- RichardReviewed in the United Kingdom on August 20, 2017
like me, a morbid curiosity in the death sentence ...
