Talk:Gallows

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[edit] What does this mean?

"Although serial execution was almost never prohibited by the number of victims, it was not uncommon to erect multiple gallows, even one noose per condemned man after the trial."

Can someone explain what this sentence is supposed to mean? It's a little unclear. MikeDockery 05:43, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems strangely worded--it seems to imply that it was standard to simultaneously hang multiple persons with the same noose?--76.104.178.183 21:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Modern Usage

Maybe someone can add how hanging in modern times (at least in the U.S.) has fallen out of favor as a means of execution?

[edit] Norfolk Gallows Manufacturer a hoax =

The BBC story linked in the main article about the chap in Norfolk who builds gallows and sells them to African dictators is a hoax, according to this article which appeared in The Times on 1 June 2006. Apparently this charming individual is a wack job with an obsession about capital punishment, and the dictators he claims to have supplied have all been queuing up to point out that they're perfectly capable of building their own. Should the link either be removed altogether as irrelevant (his activities don't tell us anything meaningful about the technology or history of gallows, after all), or an explanatory note added to the main article? --LDGE 13:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scaffold with trapdoors

So called "new drop" gallows were used for short, standard and long drop hanging. In this case exuecution on this type of gallows was not always successful until the introduction of the long drop. Even then it was not an instant death only instant unconciousness with death resulting from comatose asphyxia. In addition weights were never added to the condemmned's legs although contempory accounts of friends and relatives (later the hangman in a conceled section of the gallows) pulling on the legs of the condemned to hasten strangulation. (Olaf1 02:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC))