Whatever happened to health and safety?

[caddyman]

Since it is Hallowe'en, I thought it might be fun just to mark the day with a link to a true ghost story that I came across in wikipedia.

That is most interesting about the case of the Hammersmith Ghost, is less the gullibility and superstitious nature of the people of the time (1803-1804), but the outcome of the court case that followed.

An excise officer, one Francis Smith, shot and killed what he thought was the ghost and upon conviction at the Old Bailey, was sentenced to death by hanging and dissection, though that was later commuted to a year in prison. It occurred the me that hanging and dissection was probably overdoing a bit as a method of execution, so I wandered off down the more ghoulish side of wikipedia and looked up other methods of execution (as you do), it being Hallowe'en and all and a little gruesome entertainment required.

Well, all I can say is, people have been very inventive in the ways the have executed each other over the centuries.

This one, the Brazen Bull, is a particular horror...

And those were just the approved methods. Cor.

Comments

[glassfinger]

So your posts here get crossposted to LJ? Mine don't. DW can't do it, for some reason. Interesting.

[caddyman]

There's a setting somewhere to have them cross posted. Have a root around.

[glassfinger]

I have, several times, and an error message pops up saying it can't connect to the relevant LJ page. LJ recently changed their settings, so I think you're ok if your setting is pre-existing, but not if you want the option now.

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

With regards to the Brazen Bull, just think of the poor bugger who has to do the washing up.

I bet the insides were a major chore to clean. Even with a scouring pad !

[nanniyvono.livejournal.com]

Keep posting stuff like this i really like it

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

"Phalaris commanded that the bull be designed in such a way that its smoke rise in spicy clouds of incense" - and thus the kebab-house began.

Seeing the Brazen Bull, the first thing that came to mind was the method of execution in The Long Ships - the "Mare of Steel".


Incidentally, the dissection was deliberately part of the punishment and met a "social need" - the Royal College of Surgeons needed cadavers to dissect for instructions, and (from memory) they were officially granted 12 criminals a year to cut up since there was a paucity of other bodies (people not willing to lose their bodies preferring an actual burial).