Yesterday week, in reply to a question from Mr. Forsyth,
the Home Secretary stated that his attention had been called to the frightful mishap in the execution at Leede,—when the rope broke, and ten minutes of suspense intervened between the first attempt to hang the guilty man and his actual executiou,—and that such mishaps ought to be, and should be, guarded against in future. But he added that from the information he had obtained, he believed "that death by the execution as carried out under the present form, is as speedy and as painless as under any that could be devised," and that therefore he was not prepared to suggest any alteration. As we suppose Mr. Cross has not been in communication with any man who has died by that and also by other fOrms of violent death, we should gather that "the informa- tion he has been able to obtain" is chiefly of the nature of inference from observation. Now, observation shows that all signs of life cease instantaneously when a man is shot through the head or the heart; while struggling,—which may, of course, be reflex action, and not conscious, though that is more or less matter of conjecture, —concindes often for some time after the fall of the drop. Con- sidering also the much greater liability to mischance in the pre- sent mode of execution as compared with properly arranged
shooting, we should say that Mr. Cross is relying on " authority " in a case where authority cannot tell him se much as plain good- sense.
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