HANGING.   Retribution, punishment or barbarity? 

27^th Feb. 1891. Execution of a Murderer. TERRIBLE SCENE ON THE SCAFFOLD. [PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.] .NEW YORK, Feb. 27. Some frightful incidents attended the hanging of a murderer at Washington, Penn., early in the morning of the day appointed for the execution. The condemned man procured by some means a piece of iron, which he several times plunged into his throat, but either his strength or his nerve failed, as the self-inflicted wounds were not deep, and he only lost a quanity of blood. Despite this attempt at suicide, the sheriff determined to proceed with the execution. When, however, he entered the cell with the attendants and the clergyman to pre- pare the victim for the gallows, the murderer fought like a demon. It was finally decided, as a last resource, to place him under the influence of opiates, which, however, were only partially successful, and it became necessary to strap the condemned man to a board in order to prevent the resistance which he seemed determined to make on the scaffold. More opiates were administered, and he was bound, apparently helpless, to a plank and carried to the scaffold. Everything was soon ready the trap was sprung, but the combined weight of the plank and the man was too much for the rope, which broke, hurling the miserable man to the ground amid the groans of the spectators already sickened by what they had witnessed. The man, awakened by the shock of his fall, began a fearful struggle to free himself from the cords binding him to the plank. The attendants hurriedly picked up another noose and adjusted it to the neck of the murderer, who was this time finally hanged. The sight was a terrible cne, the wounds in the neck being opened by the pressure of the rope. Blood spurted out in jets, covering the body, board. and the ground. The executed criminal had brutally murdered an entire family.