Mechanism
The person under sentence of death placed his head on a crossbar which is about four feet from the bottom. Lead weights weighing around 75 pounds (34 kg) were attached to the axe blade. The blade is guided by grooves cut within the inner edges of the frame. A peg, which is in turn attached to a cord, kept the blade in place. The executioner removed the peg by pulling sharply on the cord, and this caused the blade to fall and decapitate the condemned. If the condemned had been tried for stealing a horse, the cord was attached to the animal which, on being whipped, started away removing the peg, thereby becoming the executioner.
Read more about this topic: Maiden (beheading)
Famous quotes containing the word mechanism:
“When one of us dies of cancer, loses her mind, or commits suicide, we must not blame her for her inability to survive an ongoing political mechanism bent on the destruction of that human being. Sanity remains defined simply by the ability to cope with insane conditions.”
—Ana Castillo (b. 1953)
“The law isn’t justice. It’s a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe.”
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)