What Do People See, Feel When They're Hanged?

1878

The Sensations of Hanging.

Some time since, says an exchange, the American press was discussing the question: "Does it hurt a man to hang him?" The conclusion arrived at seemed to be that hanging was a painless death.

Now some of the English magazines are speculating on the sensations of a hanged person, and they almost make out that hanging is rather a pleasurable and desirable operation. One person who was hung, to all intents and purposes, and afterwards revived, declared that he felt no pain, his only sensations were of fire before his eyes, which changed first to black and then to sky-blue. These colors are even a source of pleasure. A culprit who was revived when almost dead, complained that, having lost all pain in an instant, he had been taken from a light of which the charm defied description. Another criminal, who escaped through the breaking of the halter, said that, after a second or two of suffering, a light appeared, and across it a most beautiful avenue of trees."

All agree that the uneasiness is quite momentary, that a pleasurable feeling succeeds, that colors of various hues start up before the eyes, and that these having been gazed at for a limited space, the rest is oblivion. If this is the case, murderers may regret the law that consigns them to a living tomb instead of treating them to an entertaining chromatic exhibition.