The hangmans handbook by der henker   At the outset, you must determine whether this is to be a quick or a slow execution, as the techniques for either are at extremes. A quick hanging aims at quick unconsciousness and a speedy death, 3-5 minutes or so. A slow execution aims at prolonged consciousness and long struggles. A crowd interested in seeing a slow hanging is permitted to “tip” the hangman. The length of the victim’s struggle is influenced by (a) their weight; (b) the thickness of the rope and (c) the placement of the knot.

 

Technique: Binding

 

            The binding should be done at the prison. A victim may panic as they come face to face with the gallows where they will hang. If their hands are restrained, they are more likely to submit and not further disgrace themselves. There are many schools of thought here.

            Hands in front, untied.Here a rope is tightly tied around the torso at elbow level, holding the upper arms down, leaving the lower arms free. Alternately, the elbows may be tied together around the back. Crowds often enjoy the sight of the victim trying desperately and vainly to reach the noose as they strangle, or beating their hands up and down in helpless desperation.

            Hands in front, tied.Crowds enjoy this, also. Tie the hands with palms down. When first suspended, the victim may try to reach the noose, or even grab the rope overhead, but tied palms down they can get no grip. As the struggles come on the arms will often be extended parallel to the ground or raised to the chest, wrists dramatically turning to the side.

            Hands in back, tied.This is most secure against resistance.

            Legs.The legs should not be restrained in cart or ladder hangings: the spectators enjoy the kicking and stomping, and it may help to tighten the noose. For trapdoor hangings, where the victim is suspended above a wooden platform, it is advisable to tie victims about the knees. When the almost-inevitable loss of bladder control occurs, plus ejaculation in men, this will restrain it within their clothing and prevent the gallows from acquiring an unpleasant aroma.

 

Technique: Noosing

 

            With trapdoor gallows, the noose is commonly attached to the beam before the victim appears. Noosing will require opening the noose enough to pass over the head (making allowance for a female victim’s hair arrangements), thus when tightened it will allow a drop of 18” or a bit more. With the cart and ladder methods, the victim is transported already noosed. The hangman will tie the noose to the beam, leaving almost no drop.

            If the victim is likely to resist or to collapse, the hangman should make sure he has two assistants to overpower them and hold them for the noosing. The hangman should signal them to release and step back at the right moment. He should then open the trap quickly. Delay will result in the victim collapsing, being partially strangled, and then fighting to regain their feet. Extreme cases may require a stretcher with 4-5 leather straps, which is stood up until the victim is turned off.

            If a hood is used, it may be carried by the hangman or placed atop the victim’s head, partially rolled. It is customary to lower it only after the clergyman has finished his prayer for the dead and the victim has spoken their last words, if any. Instruct victims with long hair to bind it up in a bun, so as to leave their necks exposed to the noose and making lowering the hood simple. Use a wider hood for these, otherwise getting the hood on may be a bit of a struggle.

            The difference between quick and slow hangings is never clearer than in noosing. For a quick hanging, the hangman must place the knot at the back of the head. Then the victim’s full bodily weight will bear on the front of their throat, which will put maximum pressure on the windpipe and also press upon the carotid arteries that feed the brain. The result is unconsciousness in about ten seconds, and two or three minutes of convulsions.

            For a slow hanging, the knot should be placed forward of the ear, using the thickest rope obtainable. This ensures that one set of blood vessels can keep the brain conscious, and that compression of the breathing passages proceeds slowly. In one case where the hangman put the knot far forward, the victim was heard to breathe for three minutes before her stomping tightened the noose enough to initiate her death agonies.

 

 

Technique: Final Preparation

 

            Once noosed, the victim is transported to the gallows. Symbolism is heavy here. The victim is brought to the gallows in a cart, used for hauling things (including trash), not for carrying people. The victim is no longer a human, for which others might feel empathy, but a thing, and a thing to be discarded.

            They sit upon their coffin, to concentrate their mind on what they are to undergo. For the same reason, they are already loosely noosed, rope wound around their waist, and are required to hold the end in their hands.

            At the gallows they dismount or, if hands are tied in back, the hangman lifts them down. On the gallows, they must present the hangman with the rope and let him unwind it from their hips. The victim’s presenting the hangman with the rope he will use to hang them marks the ultimate submission to his power.

            The hangman may also accept the final kiss, the kiss of forgiveness. Most hangmen prefer to make it a long one, and the victims seem to share this preference, if only because every second spent kissing serves to delay the beginning of their strangling.

            One may think of the gallows ceremonies as a morality play. The victim enters the stage as a penitent, come to pay for their sins, to make atonement with humiliation, agony, and death. They may jest with the hangman to show their courage. They are permitted a last speech to express their remorse or regrets. Remember that you are only a supporting actor in this drama; the main actor or actress is paying dearly for their role and their celebrity. Do not try to upstage her as one hangman did: when the victim intoned, “I am sick, yea, sick unto death, and of a traitorous disease,” the hangman stole the show by holding up the noose and replying, “here’s the cure, sir.” It drew laughter, but quite ruined the performance.

 

The Actual Hanging

 

            Once the victim is bound, noosed, and hooded, they may be hanged. In a quick hanging, the hangman should turn them off as quickly as possible. In a slow one, he may wait several minutes to let the suspense build, as the victim prays, weeps, or hysterically wails. If hooded, they cannot see what the hangman is doing, is his hand on the ladder, is he ready to snap the reins? and must wonder which breath will be their last.

            Sometimes the victim takes comfort in signaling their own hanging. For this purpose, it is customary to give them a handkerchief, to be dropped when they are ready to be turned off. Make it clear there is an outer limit: one victim who protested her innocence refused to give the signal for over an hour as she stood there trembling.

 

Technique: Turning Off

 

            Once the victim is noosed, the hangman is now prepared to commence the hanging. The more merciful hangmen prefer to commence it as quickly as possible. If bribed by the crowd, however, the hangman may delay for a minute or two. During this time the victim may be babbling prayers or just babbling. One victim was reported to have keep screaming “It can’t be!” until she was silenced by the noose. Another called out to the person she allegedly murdered. A third screamed as the cart drew out from under her.

            With a trapdoor, the hangman simply pulls on the metal bar, it slides and when the slot cut into it lines up with an iron tongue below the trap, the trap opens. With a ladder, he may seize the victim’s shoulder and spin them off (literally turning them off), or tip the ladder until they fall off, or kick or shove the ladder sideway out from under them. (Make sure to move the ladder far enough away to where they cannot catch it with their feet.) With a cart, the hangman simply drives it away. Some victims will simply fall over into the air, others will be dragged by the noose off the cart, still others try to lean forward and fall forward so that they exit feet-first.

            It is critical with a quick cart hanging to secure the noose tightly, as victims customarily face the rear of the cart, and when the noose drags them off it may rotate under the chin and prolong their ordeal.

            Once the victim is suspended, the hangman should monitor them. If they seem to be taking too long, he may help them by pushing the noose down. The custom is that hangman should not pull the victim’s legs, but may allow their friends to do so (he may demand a gratuity for the privilege). But in particularly difficult cases the hangman may (if hands are bound behind the back) place his foot on the rope binding the hands to add his weight to theirs, or stand upon their shoulders. This should be reserved for extreme cases – an appealing victim, a minor crime, or a struggle of more than 10 minutes.

 

 

 

The Struggles

 

            At length, the ladder slides or the cart draws or the trap opens, and victim’s feet are in the air and the noose tightening around their throat.

            The struggles of the hanged vary widely. Some die with a few quivers, others fight wildly and at length. The following are thus generalities and not rules.

            Initially the victim hangs motionless, then the body initially shivers violently for a brief time. If tied in front, the hands fly up. Then the legs spread apart, and often males become visibly erect (similar excitation occurs in the females, according to doctors who perform autopsy, but is not visible, though there are reports of nipple stiffening through their clothing). Their toes reach for the ground, either seeking support or as a reflex. After seconds of shivering, the victim becomes still for a brief time.

            The victim will then begin to make powerful, rhythmic, efforts to breathe, about 1-2 seconds apart. The shoulders will hunch and the belly muscles contract and relax. The latter causes the victim’s hips to swing forward and back as though experiencing sexual relations. (At this point the more vulgar spectators often jokingly cry “she’s fucking the air!” to draw laughter.) Crowds especially appreciate this effect if multiple victims are hanged on a crowded gallows, as often occurs at Tyburn. Some constables suppress this response, others permit it in order to heighten the victims’ humiliation and thus increase the deterrent to potential criminals in the crowd. Gurgling sounds or gasping may be audible.

            The victim’s legs may move rapidly, as if running, or they may stomp up and down. In some cases, the legs rise as if to a sitting position, or even up to the chest, which with a female victim gives the spectators quite the view.

            Hands bound in the back will rise up against the back and clench tightly, sometimes with fingernail cutting into the palms. Hands bound in the front will rise up (if not tied by the elbows, they may rise above shoulder level) and hands will twist violently and unnaturally to the side.

            In a slow hanging, the victim remains conscious and will often try to reach around their body to get at the noose as they strangle. With hands bound in front they may try to grab the noose, or the rope overhead.

            In a fast hanging, the victim goes unconscious quickly but the convulsions are no less. In a few cases, hangmen report signs that the fast hanging victim may momentarily return to consciousness a few times. With hands bound in front, they may move their arms spasmodically for a time, and then grasp the noose or the rope above their head as if trying to escape and breathe, then return to spasmodic movement.

            An alternate form of struggle involves the body stiffening and arching backward, as the more powerful muscles in the back and legs overpower those in front, hanging thus rigid and arched, often shivering, until the body goes limp. Victims will often alternate between forms of struggling. They may, for example, run for a time, then go rigid, then run again.

            Either way, in a quick hanging the struggles will continue for about two or three minutes, after which the efforts to breath will continue for perhaps another minute, and movement of hands and feet a bit more. In a slow hanging, the struggles will continue longer, depending upon the victim’s weight and throat condition and the size of the rope. The longest reported time, in the case of a very petite female, is 20 minutes.

            In a quick hanging, with knot at the back of the neck, there will often be minimal breathing sounds, except that usually at the start a victim manages to force air out in a burst, sounding like “gaak” but then cannot inhale (the chest is more powerful in exhalation than in inhalation). A very petite victim, or one with a sturdy throat, will be an exception to this rule and may make gurgling and gasping sounds. The noose will usually compress the salivary glands, leading to saliva and sometimes foam flowing from the mouth.

            When the struggles stop, if a doctor is present, wait a sufficient time and have him verify death; the heart generally stops 10-20 minutes after the hanging began, long after the victim is beyond hope. If a doctor is not available, let the victim hang at least half an hour, and preferably an hour, to ensure against any possible revival. A century ago, hangmen cut their victims down after they stopped twitching, but there were some who survived and became known as “half-hanged.” This occasioned great embarrassment to the hangman, who was obliged to locate them, force them from the bed where they were recovering, and hang them a second time while they pleaded for life. In Scotland, a victim who survives hanging is pardoned, but in England the sentence (to be hanged until dead) is seen as not complete short of death.

            Urinary control: bladder control is generally, though not universally, lost This is dependent, of course, on the state of the victim’s bladder. At Tyburn, where the cart trip takes three hours, with stops for the victim to drink at taverns along the way, it is universal.

            It should be noted that there is a general belief that the victim loses urinary control at the point of death. This is incorrect. Urinary control is commonly lost in the first minutes of hanging. It is often found in victims who were cut down so early that they survived. The ejaculatory reflex in males seems to come later, perhaps at death, as it is not reported in survivors.

            For a quick hanging, the rope should be thin, so as to sink into the throat. We advise no thinner than 3/8 inch (11mm) hemp, however, and if the victim’s friends wish to pull on their legs, no thinner than half an inch (12.5 mm).

            For a slow hanging, the rope should be as thick as possible, to spread out the pressure. The thickest rope available is commonly marketed as anchor line or mooring line. The knot should be placed just in front of the ear, thus keeping the blood vessels on one side of the neck clear and the victim at least half-conscious for quite a time. A survivor of suicide reports having been conscious for three minutes, “those were the longest minutes of my life.” Indeed!

 

Technique: Finishing Up

 

            After the victim has stopped struggling, if there is no doctor present to verify death, the victim should be left suspended to ensure the job is finished. The custom varies, but half an hour to an hour is sufficient. The sight of the victim, limp and finished, turning on the rope, also increases the impact of the hanging, and may deter crime among the spectators.

            While the time passes, the hangman should take his perquisites, the victim’s clothing. Untie the hands, and remove the victim’s dress, shirt or pants. Some hangmen entirely strip the victim, others leave them in their undergarments – a shift for the women, underpants for the men. Leaving them in their underwear sacrifices some profit, but it saves the effort of laundering to remove the victim’s bodily releases. On the other hand, complete stripping is appreciated by the crowd and increases humiliation and thus deterrence. A pickpocket may reflect that that could be him up there, erect and dripping, a shoplifter may repent after imagining herself rotating, limp and nude with dripping toes. The person the crowd had seen only a half hour or an hour before praying or weeping is now just a limp, strangled and degraded victim of the law, put naked on public display. It is a clear lesson that crime leads not only to a painful end, but to a completely humiliating one.

            After whatever interval is desired, you will cut the victim down. With the trap, the trap is first raised and the coffin placed on it. With the ladder, the rope is simply cut and the victim falls, or the hangman may cut the rope and carry them down. With the cart it is easiest. Back the cart under the victim, who will now have their legs on it. Slide the coffin under them, put the feet in, cut the rope and they fall into it. Nail the lid shut. Your duties are now done. You may reap some benefit on the side by selling the victim’s clothing (they often go to a hanging in their best) and the rope, either intact or cut into pieces. If the victim lacks family, their body can be sold to a physician for study. If they have family, you may charge a modest sum for stripping the victim and putting them in a shroud.

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