Dated this Ninth day of May, One thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven. THOMAS M. DAVENPORT, Under-Sheriff of Oxfordshire. H. B. ISAACSON, Governor of the Prison. J. K. NEWTON, Chaplain of the Prison. J. RIORDON, Chief Warder of the Prison. HENRY IVES, Sheriff's Officer. THOS. WM. AUSTIN, Reporter, _Oxford Journal_. ROBERT BRAZIES, Reporter, _Oxford Chronicle_. JOSEPH HENRY WARNER, Reporter, _Oxford Times_. J. LANSBURY, Warder. SURGICAL CERTIFICATE. I, HENRY BANKS SPENCER, the Surgeon of Her Majesty's Prison at Oxford, hereby certify that I this day examined the body of Charles Smith, on whom judgement of death was this day executed in the said prison; and that, on such examination, I found that the said Charles Smith was dead. Dated this Ninth day of May, One thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven. HENRY B. SPENCER, Surgeon of the Prison. CHAPTER VI. Other Methods of Execution. From time to time people raise an outcry against the English mode of putting criminals to death, and there are many Englishmen who have a firm conviction that hanging is the very worst and most unscientific form of capital punishment. The prejudices of these people seem to be based on an utterly wrong idea of how an English execution is conducted, and I hope that the chapter dealing with my method will form the basis for a truer judgment. [Illustration: English Axe and Block, now in the Tower of London.]