The execution of Mrs. Major seems to have brought three
questions under general discussion—should women be executed, should anyone be executed, and if so how should the' ondemned be executed ? Whatever resistance there may be to any change regarding the first two points there is plenty of room for discussion on the third. With the rope, the guillotine and the electric chair of the twentieth century I wonder whether we have really improved very much on the hemlock of the Greeks: And there would be a good deal to be said for reverting to something of the kind still. Hanging is a survival of days when executions were public. Today the purpose is merely to send the criminal out of life as expeditiously and effectively as possible, and a draught or an injection would be more merciful than the rope. It was recorded that Mrs. Major was given a soporific the night before her execution. It would have been far better for her never to have returned to consciousness.
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