Why stop at hanging and electrocution? You have a very impoverished imagination for 'retribution,' don't you? If you want to be reactionary, why not go mediaeval?
Why not drawing & quartering? Burning at the stake? Skinning? Gouging the eyes out? Cutting off the nose and ears? An Iron Maiden? Branding? Boiling? Disemboweling & forcing the condemned to eat his own entrails? Cutting off the cock and balls and stuff them up his ass? Leaving the tied-up body to be eaten alive by hyenas or sharks?
Yoshie -------------
I came across a book of torture one time in the Doe library and spent more than an hour with it in the old stacks-these were cast iron tiers several stories high on the inner core of the old library building at Cal.
The best of the offerings I found, and the one that appeared the most likely to have been practiced routinely, indeed, from paintings and drawings of medieval townships, these can occasionally be seen, was called The Wheel. Beyond the walls of the town and before the fields, usually placed along a road were long poles with wagon wheels attached and raised up to the sky. There in profile, can be seen large birds rousting or circling over head, and the ragged tails of limbs or cloth dangled through the spokes. These were always a curious sight but I was never aware what exactly they were or what was depicted, until it was explained in this book. These were the remains of corpses which can be seen in the background of several paintings by Heironymus Bosch, Peter Breugel, and Matthias Grunewald. One sees these poles with wagon wheels in the distance, outside a village or town wall.
The manner of preliminary torture varied of course, but the final result was basically the same. The condemned was roped, spread eagle on a wagon wheel, which was then hoisted up into place on a long pole and condemned left to die of thirst and exposure. After death or perhaps in the day or two of semi-consciousness proceeding the end, common birds of prey and carrion eaters came to feast. These were most likely the large black crows during the day, and perhaps owls at night that are still commonly found in regions. For the particularly odious offenders of the public good, rather than tying the condemned with ropes, the arms and legs were broken in several places with heavy mallets, leaving the limbs more pliable and these were woven through the spokes and then tied to hold them in place. This was referred to as, broken on the wheel. Then, the wheel with its bounty was hoisted skyward as before.
What appealed to me most about this practice was that I had noticed the result depicted in paintings, and yet didn't realize what it was. The other appeal was that it required no special tools or exotic apparatus, but was instead an ingenious use of the common place. Then too, there is a certain attraction to the means and logic of the public display itself which was nevertheless secured by the height of several meters and from which it would be impossible to offer water or aid without the use of a ladder or other climbing device.
It was obviously a variation of the Roman crucification, but I suspect the wheel might pre-date the cross, and thus the cross may have been a Roman formality, a more stately variation of the common wheel. In any case, there is something timeless and comforting in the idea of the condemned tied to face skyward, with their backs to the world and where the elements and winged savangers do the work of days, until the remains drop through the spokes to be collected by the relatives or the curious.
What a grand sight it must have been. Behold, there, along the road, in celebration and welcome, where one would expect tall trees, are to be found instead the condemned on their wheels, decorating the causeways to the gates of the city, wherein great excitement and fanfare awaited midst the civility of ceremonial arcades and high facades of State.
Chuck Grimes