ExecutedToday.com

Shortly after midnight this date* in 1935, the career of 71-year-old Canadian executioner Arthur Ellis came to an end with the botched hanging of Thomasina Sarao.

All a simple matter of physics.

When the old-school “drop ‘em from a cart” method of strangulation hanging gave way to the “new drop”, the hangman’s art eventually came to encompass the scientific application of the humane level of force to the doomed person’s vertebrae.

Something in the neighborhood of 1,000 ft/lbs was about right. Too little, and the poor wretch strangles to death. Too much, and you rip the head right off.

Thomasina Sarao got too much, and it ripped her head right off.

They’d worked everything out to a handy table, see, where if you weighed this much, they knew to drop you this far, derived from the formula

1020/weight in pounds (less 14 lbs for the head) = drop in feet

Except in the widow Mrs. Sarao’s case — the Italian immigrant had offed her husband to collect the insurance** — Arthur Ellis was given the wrong weight for his client. He coiled a noose for a woman 32 pounds lighter than the person who actually mounted the scaffold, and he therefore made it more than a foot too long.

That whole “ripping off a woman’s head” thing really harshed everyone’s vibe. So, although hangings had long been moved behind prison walls, the Canadian government stopped the ongoing practice of allowing members of the general public to obtain tickets to witness them.

“Arthur Ellis” — it was actually a trade name he’d made up, and so dignified that one of his successors used the same alias — died three years after his grisly retirement party. He’s saluted by the Arthur Ellis Awards, the Crime Writers of Canada’s annual awards: a little trophy of a guy getting hanged.

Winners of the Arthur Ellis Award, like Robert J. Sawyer, get this trinket to commemorate. At least the little wooden fetish has his head attached to his shoulders. (Images (c) Robert J. Sawyer, and used with permission.)

* March 28 is sometimes reported, but the period press reports (like this wire story) seem to agree on the 29th, as does this index of Canadian executions.

** Two male co-conspirators, Leone Gagliardi and Angelo Donofrio, were also hanged for the same crime, a few minutes before Sarao on a different scaffold.

Also On This Date

• 1796: Francois de Charette, Vendee rebel
• 1720: Charles Vane, an unsinkable pirate

Yesterday night, your humble servant won the 2009 Cliopatria Award for best writing of a history blog.

Embarrassed headsmen are no pretty sight, but considering the depth and breadth of the history blogging community, I’m red-cheeked under the hood at stuff like this:

Given its format — the story behind a different historical execution, every day — Executed Today could by rights be monotonous and depressing. It is testament to “The Headsman’s” skills as a writer and storyteller that his blog is nothing of the sort. An engaging and astonishingly prolific blogger, The Headsman writes witty and accessible prose, jumps from continent to continent and century to century with ease, and despite two years of daily blogging he is still finding new things to do with his premise.

That’s a pretty close description to this blog’s aspiration. I’m gratified that it sometimes succeeds.

One glance at the other winning blogs (Georgian London, Curious Expeditions) and posts (Curating the Oceans: The Future of Singapore’s Past, Richardson’s Rules of Order), or at the other Best Writer nominees, or at any of the previous Clio winners, underscores the quality of the field. Best writer? How do you choose among this bounty? Clio hangs out with Calliope, after all.

So, very great thanks to the jury of professional historians for entertaining a mere hobbyist’s contributions. And special gratitude to Tim Abbott of Walking the Berkshires for both the nomination and a good bit of encouragement; to the guest bloggers and interviewees who liven things up around these dolorous parts; and to many others who know who they are, or ought to. Thanks above all to the site’s readers, new and old, regular and sporadic.

A few of the more satisfactory posts in the past year are conveniently arranged in Executed Today’s recent annual report: see here for stuff I wrote, and here for guest content that frequently puts it to shame.

why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

-John Donne

Also On This Date

• 1980: Islamic extremists for the Grand Mosque seizure
• 1923: Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters