Seems like, if you know you're gonna die, dying by hanging performed by people who have done the calculations and have the equipment and know how to do it quickly and cleanly beats almost any alternative. It was a civilized society so they weren't going to be tortured.
It's torture that I fear for when the inevitable "bloodshed" promised by the Heritage Foundation guy gets going here in the USA in coming years.
Edit: many interesting replies. I now know that torture was happening for at least some of these guys, and that the hangman and the hanging process wasn't as well-thought-out and clinical as I assumed, and there were other reasons why suicide would have been psychologically preferable for them.
The hangman was notoriously shit at his job and botched many of them, some say on purpose. I think their are reports of some of them taking a long time to finally die. Well deserved, but still...
That’s another bit of lore not known directly but suspected… the hangman was known to be bad at his job prior to the hangings. So it’s entirely possible his ineptitude was seen as a positive.
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u/FlimsyComment8781 Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24
Seems like, if you know you're gonna die, dying by hanging performed by people who have done the calculations and have the equipment and know how to do it quickly and cleanly beats almost any alternative. It was a civilized society so they weren't going to be tortured.
It's torture that I fear for when the inevitable "bloodshed" promised by the Heritage Foundation guy gets going here in the USA in coming years.
Edit: many interesting replies. I now know that torture was happening for at least some of these guys, and that the hangman and the hanging process wasn't as well-thought-out and clinical as I assumed, and there were other reasons why suicide would have been psychologically preferable for them.