What was behind the invention of the “drop” is not so clear. On first sight we are inclined to deem it the whim of some “faddist”: indeed, it exhales a strong and disagreeable odour of humanitarianism. As such we are naturally inclined to condemn it. Our conservative instincts are also against the daring innovation. Here was a new principle: the fall would dislocate the neck, and the victim would die otherwise than by strangulation. The “fall,” resulting in immediate death, would deprive the public of what was regarded as the most diverting episode of the piece—the tugging by friends at the legs of the suspended man, the thumping him on the chest, rough methods of accelerating his death. But on consideration it seems probable that the State began to have a real concern as to the effect of mere hanging. We have seen (pp. 221-3) how “half-hanged Smith” was brought back to life—a life which, thus prolonged, did indeed prove useful to the State. But awkward questions arose as to the proper way of dealing with such cases: the mob, indeed the public, and the legal experts took different views. Moreover, a new art was arising, based on these cases of recovery. Bronchotomy, as applied to victims of the scaffold, did not, for all I have been able to find, become recognised as a branch of the healing art till some years later than 1760. But so early as 1733, Mr. Chovet had made such progress in “preventing the fatal consequences of the Halter” that the State may well have trembled. Here was a new development of smuggling. On the whole it seems safer to conclude that the “fall” was adopted as a means of bringing to naught these ingenious attempts to rob the State of its due.