METHODS OF EXECUTION
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—On this question I remember reading the argument of a distinguished Scot, Mounstuart Elphinstone, that the
ideal form of execution was the one traditional with the Mahrattas, and adopted by the British after the Mutiny— blowing from the mouth of guns. Capital punishment, Elphinstone reasons, has its justification only as a mode of deterrence and therefore the more deterrent a form of execution is, the better it answers its purpose. But humanity also requires us to spare the criminal any unnecessary pain. Blowing from the mouth of a cannon combines the maximum of deterrence, from the horror it creates in the spectator, with the eompletest absence of pain for the person executed. Obviously anyone blown from the mouth of a cannon can feel nothing.
What is the answer to this ?—Yours faithfully, •
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