HANGING is the mode by which capital punishment is carried out in the United Kingdom. In England, formerly, in atrocious cases, it was usual for the court to direct a murderer to be hung upon a, gibbet in chains near the place where the crime was com mitted—also at a later period to order the body to be dissected—and the execution to take place on the next day but one after the was passed.. But these useless were abolished by the stat. 6 and 7 Will. IV. c. 30.
The mode of punishing by hanging was first adopted in England in 1241, when Mau rice, a nobleman's son, was hanged for piracy. Other more barbarous modes of inflict-. ing death were long in use, being prescribed by statute, but have been abolished, and hanging has long been the ordinary, because the most humane, mode of executing capital punishment. In treason, hanging is part of the statutory punishment, coupled with mangling the body, though the crown may change the sentence into simple behead ing, except in the case of women, who are only • hanged, in deference to their sex. Formerly, in Scotland, on the other hand, a capital sentence pronounced south of the Firth of Forth could not be executed within less than 30 days; and if pronounced north of the Firth, within less than 40 days after it was pronounced. But now, in both eases,
the day of execution must not be less than 15, nor more than 21 days, south of the Firth; nor less than 20, nor more than 27 days, if north of the Firth, after sentence passed. Until recently, the hanging or execution took place in public. See EXECUTION.
The cause of death in hanging is complex. The compression of the windpipe by the cord, the obstruction of the return of venous blood from the head, and of the of arterial blood to the brain, the stretching or tearing of the nervous structures of the neck, and in some instances dislocation or fracture of the vertebrae, may concur in the production of the fatal effect, which, though attended with violent struggles in some cases, is probably as nearly instantaneous as possible. The subject, in its relations to medical'jurisprudenee, will be more fully considered under the tit'e STR.twoui„moN.