The Spanish and Spanish-American method of execution, by means of the garotte, has been much praised by some advocates of reform. The prisoner to be garotted is placed in a chair, to the back of which an iron collar is attached in such a manner that it can be drawn partly through the chair-back by means of a heavily weighted lever. When the lever and weight are raised the head can be passed through the collar, and by dropping the weight the collar is drawn tight and causes strangulation. This method is certain, but I do not consider it so good as the present English system of hanging, because death by strangulation is much slower and more painful than death by dislocation. In one form of the garotting chair this fact has been recognised, and an iron spike is placed immediately behind the neck, so that when the pressure is applied the spike enters between two of the vertebræ and severs the spinal cord. This I consider worse than our own system, because the iron spike must cause a certain amount of bleeding, which the English method avoids. [Illustration: The Garotte.] The American system of hanging, which has been recently superseded by electrocution, was but a slight modification of the ancient system of Jack Ketch, or the time-honoured method of Judge Lynch. In these older systems the convict stood upon the ground while the rope was placed round his neck, and the other end passed over the arm of the gallows, or the limb of a tree. Then the executioner and his assistants hauled on the other end of the rope, until the victim was swung clear off the ground and was gradually strangled. In the improved American method the place of the executioner was taken by a heavy weight which was attached to the rope and which rapidly ran up the convict to a height of some feet. In some few very extreme cases of heavy bodies with frail necks this may have caused dislocation, but as a rule strangulation would be the cause of death. [Illustration: Old Methods.]