GUILLOTINE, gil'o-ten, a machine for 'beheading, so called from Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin, and introduced during the French Revolution. It consists of two posts united at the top by a cross beam and furnished 'with grooves, in 'which a broad steel. blade heavily weighted with lead descends by the impetus of its own weight on the neck of the criminal, fas tened to a plank beneath. The certainty and speed with which this instrument separates the head from the 'body gives it an advantage over the axe or sword wielded by the hand. Ma chines of a similar description have been in use among many nations. In Italy, from the 13th century, it was the privilege of the nobility to stiffer capital punishment by an instrument called the mannasa, closely resembling the guil lotine. In Germany, likewise, during the Mid dle Ages, a mechanism resembling the guillo tine was made use of, though the blade did not fall upon but was thrust through the neck of the criminal. There was formerly employed in Great Britain, also, and,more especially in Scot land, an instrument of decapitation called the "maiden," said to have, been introduced by-Re gent Morton, who himself afterward suffered by it. It differed from the guillotine in this, that while the blade of the guillotine falls upon the neck of the criminal, in the maiden, the blade is fixed with its edge upward, and the neck of the criminal is forced down upon it by 'the fall of a heavy weight. Such, an apparatus
Was also known and used at an early period in France. The Dutch likewise formerly made use of a decapitating machine.
Dr. Guillotin was not the inventor of the beheading machine which bears his name, and had only a secondary share in its introduction into France. As a member of the constitutional assembly he proposed to that body to abolish all class distinctions in the method of inflicting capital punishments, and with that view to have some instrument invented which might do.the work more quickly and certainly than the hand of the headsman. The establishment of a new penal code having now become the subject of deliberation, a vote for a uniform system of capital punishment was, on the motion of Dr. Guillotin, passed on 21 Dec. 1780, with a recommendation that the least painful method of inflicting it should be adopted. It was not till 1792, however, that this special machine was selected after a report from Dr. Ant- Louis, secretary to the College of Surgeons. The guil lotine was first erected in the Place de Greve at Paris, and the first execution performed by it on 25 April 1792, on a highwayman. Shortly afterward, 'in remembrance of Guillotin's origr nal proposition, it received the name of (guil lotine," both popularly and in official language, and it was introduced wherever the penal code of France has been adopted.