Shoe leather

When I was studying anthropodermic books in graduate school, I came across related examples of items other than book-bindings made from human skin. Among them was this pair of shoes (2nd image, color photo here) fashioned from the hide of "Big Nose" George Parrott. Thanks go to Sue for bringing the story back to mind so that I can relay it to you. It will not be my 1st post about shoes (see Burial shoes, Klompen, and Gumshoe), but it may be the strangest...

George Parrott a.k.a. George Manuse and George Warden was an American cattle rustler. In 1878, after he and his gang bungled a train robbery in Wyoming, they murdered 2 lawmen, resulting in a $20,000 bounty offered for their apprehension. The following year, still at large, they pulled off the daring daytime robbery of as much as $14,000 from wealthy Montana merchant Morris Cahn - despite the fact that Cahn was traveling with more than 2 dozen army troops. Still in Montana, Big Nose George was arrested in 1880 and returned to Wyoming to face charges of murder. He almost managed to escape from jail days before he was to hang, and an outraged lynch mob some 200-strong strung Parrott up from a telegraph pole. The doctors who took possession of the body after death used its components for a number of purposes:

• They studied the outlaw's brain for clues to his criminality.
• They sawed off his cranium and presented it to Lillian Heath, who later became Wyoming's 1st female doctor, and is said to have used it as an ashtray, a pen holder, and doorstop.
• A death mask was made of Parrott's face.
• The skin of his thighs and chest was removed and sent to a tannery in Denver, where it was made into a medical bag and a pair of shoes that one of the doctors wore to his inaugural ball when he was elected governor of Wyoming in 1892.

Big Nose George's dismembered body was finally buried behind the doctor's office after it had been preserved for about a year in a whiskey barrel filled with brine. It wasn't until 1950 that the remains resurfaced - still in the barrel stumbled upon by construction workers. Inside were the skull (minus the cranium) and the shoes (photo here). An elderly Dr. Heath sent the skull cap to the scene and it matched up perfectly. Much later, DNA testing confirmed the identity and journalist Chuck Woodbury touched Big Nose George's preserved skin:

"I was incredibly lucky to visit the day that photographer Craig Pindell and historian/writer Larry K. Brown were photographing George for the archives of the Wyoming State Museum. After they were done, they put the shoes and skull back in the normally closed-up glass case. When they weren't looking, I managed to cop a feel of the shoes, which are 2-toned. They're skin color on the front and brown in back - kinda like saddle shoes. Only the soles are made of cow leather. And they are very worn, proving that the doctor wore his George shoes a lot. I rubbed the shoes. I figured they'd be flimsy. I was shocked that they were very sturdy."

The shoes, partial skull, and death mask are on permanent display at the Carbon County Museum (photos here and here). The skull cap may be seen at the Union Pacific Museum. The medicine bag has never been found...

NOTE: If you are hungry for another instance of shoes made from human hide, have a look at this 1883 report about the alleged gruesome activities that took place at the Tewksbury State Almshouse in Massachusetts. Among other abuses, the lengthy report details the tanning of human hides and includes patterns for cutting the leather and a photograph of a sample that was entered into evidence.

Follow-ups

Nuremberg Chronicle 4/20/11
Rare original King James Bible found in an English village church. Lincoln's signature found on the wall of an Illinois university.

All about birds lately 4/12/10 Bike trail near Chicago will run through rattlesnake habitat. The Egyptian cobra missing from the Bronx Zoo was found.

Over the moon 4/5/11 Canadian prisoner "roughed up" by dangerous cow. Farm animals found inside an Iowa home. Montana cow gives birth to rare set of triplets. Dotty the donkey receives award for saving sheep.

April fools 4/1/11 A 35-year-old man drove his car through the front window of a Massachusetts driving school. Mark Wright commented on this post, "You're right: they're very common - but not only in Florida. After recovering from being hit by a car that crashed into the Maryland convenience store I was exiting, I started StorefrontCrashes.com to track and discuss these accidents. Thanks for helping shine some light on this surprisingly stealthy safety problem!"

All aboard! 3/29/10 The day after this post, it was reported that an 8' mako shark had jumped into a boat in the Gulf of Mexico.

Acid alternative 3/24/11
My friend Angie writes, "I think it's actually a strong alkaline rather than acid.......and the remaining liquid is neutral enough to be flushed safely. The boffins at the Mayo have been using the technique for quite some time..."

A flamingo fell down 3/20/10 The flamingos in a Swedish zoo were massacred by the anteaters.

Fossil sex 3/19/11 Largest fossilized spider found in Mongolia. Discovery of the oldest flying insect imprint in Massachusetts.

Electroplating the dead 3/17/11 Thanks to Chase for this explanatory note: "While the thought of ending up on a knick-knack shelf in some hoarder's livingroom appeals to me may I point out a fatal flaw in Dr. Varlot's (!) method? Using a thin, usually copper, coating that acts as a base for electroplating an object is standard procedure HOWEVER his next step will leave a bit to be desired if used on a corpse, especially a nice juicy one. Putting the dearly departed into a vacuum will result in an at best really distorted sack of bio matter and an awful lot of precious body fluids sloshing about. The end result might look like your uncle Joe if viewed in a dark room and you squint a lot but that kind of takes the shine off the whole electroplating business, so to speak. Considering the price of silver nowadays I would do my research carefully. For those of us with limited budgets there is the alternative of a good inexpensive nickle plating that any autobody shop worth their salt can do for a couple of hundred bucks. "

Metaphor 3/12/11 A baby porpoise stranded in a rice paddy by the Japanese tsunami has been returned to the sea. Before and after images of the devastation in Japan, and the sound of the earthquake.

St. Catherine of Siena 3/8/11 In response to this post, Sue writes, "I think she looks very sweet, even as a mummy. It always delights me when something I've led you to is used on your blog."

Birds and dogs 3/4/11 Jackdaw befriends British schoolboy. Dog saves owner from Japanese tsunami. Fashionable bird on the Paris runway. Guide dog gets a guide dog. Man in Afghanistan kills birds and small mammals to keep runways safe. Owl rescued from engine after being hit by car, but had to be euthanized. Pet dog found alive in the rubble a month after a fire in Boston. Old bird lays new egg. Cache of 8 million dog mummies found in Egypt. The Transylvanian naked neck chicken a.k.a. the "churkey." A family in Florida is besieged by red-shouldered hawks. A bird in the dishwasher in Cleveland. Stolen ostrich runs home in Romania. British man opens hotel for chickens. In case you missed it on the news, here's the live link to a bald eagle's nest in Iowa.

Mummies guarded 1/30/11 Jasmine Day, author of The Mummy's Curse, wanted me to spread the word about this petition to protect the ancient Egyptian monuments, one of which has already been destroyed.

Lethal cocktail 1/25/11 The DEA seized Georgia's supply of thiopental. Execution drug import papers questioned in Arizona.

Stuck 11/24/10 An Ohio man was found stuck to the chair he had sat in for 2 years. Philadelphia woman trapped on her toilet for days.

Specimen swallowed 10/29/10 Chimpanzee meat on the black market in the U.K. Squirrel meat served in Edinburgh. Iguana meat siezed at the Texas-Mexican border. Raccoon meat stocked at South Carolina grocery store.

Lost languages 10/6/10 The last 2 speakers of a native Mexican language are not speaking to one another.

Double take 10/3/10 Another animal walking on its forelegs in China.

My monkey 9/14/10 A Virginia woman arrived for a court hearing with her monkey tucked into her bra. British monkeys given a car to play with.

Mirages 9/6/10 Optical illusion caused 3 suns to appear in sky over China. Then there were 2 suns seen in China's sky.

"Wonderful tombs" 8/23/10 Thousands of tombs in the Saudi Arabian desert are spotted on Google Earth images from space.

Ancient spirits 8/19/10 Ancient Nubians used beer as antibiotic.

Steampunk design 7/21/09 Thanks to Chase for the link to this post and this blog.

Churchill's choppers 7/16/10 A thrifty 19th c. Wisconsin widow retrofits her dead husband's dentures for her own mouth.

Zahi Hawass 7/15/10 It was reported in early March that Hawass would not stay on as chief antiquities official in the new Egyptian government. He resigned, but was reappointed by the end of the month. He is appealing a court ruling that sentences him to prison for a year.

Antique chocolates 6/10/10 A wedding cake from the 1890s!

Crafty bees 5/14/10 Founder of Burt's Bees cosmetics wants to donate land in Maine for a national park. Attacking bees close Phoenix intersection. Beekeeper describes attack.

"Comfort station" makeovers 5/4/10 Public restroom in Boston will reopen as a sandwich shop.

Corpses in strange places 4/6/10 In a grocery store (for a matter of minutes). A soccer game in Colombia (for hours). In her cubicle at work (for nearly a day). Riding around in the passenger seat of his friend's car (for 3 days). In an Orlando Walmart parking lot (for days). In the home of her son, a horror filmmaker (for a year). In his apartment in Sweden (for 3 years). In a hoarder's home. In the foyer of the home she shared with her adult twin sons. In the closet of the room her grandson was having sex in. In a pest control truck. On top of a 1,000' radio tower. In a New Mexico emergency room (after decomposition had already set in).

Auto-appendectomy 3/29/10 Leonid Rogozov had to remove his own appendix in 1961 while in Antarctica. The 1st U.S. research station at the South Pole was blown up.

He Pingping 3/16/10 Nepalese teenager Junrey Balawing (1st image) set to become world's shortest man in June.

Evelyn McHale 3/2/10 I got a welcome comment from Gary Wright: "Evelyn was my Aunt. That note sounds right to me because my Grandma was a bit of a fruitcake (God bless her soul). I was born in '49 but remember my mother (Helen) speaking of this tragic event."

Ironic deaths 2/4/10 Wrongly convicted man killed in workplace accident. Funeral home owner dies while transporting body.

Sinkholes 1/12/10 Florida woman's yard swallows her up.

Happy New Year! 1/1/10 Audio slideshow of world's only ice musician.

Gibson guitar 12/31/09 Swedish police seize a shotgun disguised as a guitar.

Smilodon 12/21/09 The mechanics of the saber-toothed tiger's bite.

Flying fish 11/29/09 It rained earthworms on a school in Scotland.

Cloaca 11/17/09 An art project involving the preserved poop of William S. Burroughs (1914-1997).

Stone/House 11/19/09 New Zealand earthquake dislodges 30-ton boulder. A 1,000-ton sandstone boulder crashed into a house in Montana.

Circus animals on the lam 11/13/09 A herd of goats wanders onto the I-5 in Sacramento. A deer crashes through a Minnesota couple's window and ends up in the closet. Loose llama on the attack in Cleveland. Raccoons chasing people from the Washington, D.C., metro. A fox was living on top of a skyscraper in London. Spider monkey killed in traffic in North Carolina. Komodo dragons escaped from an Indonesian zoo. Goat wanders into Idaho music store. Two cars stopped in England had 16 lambs inside. Tortoise stolen from zoo in Colorado. Five goats found wandering the streets of New Jersey.

White Bengal tiger 9/29/09 Woman drives off a tiger attacking her husband in Malaysia.

Creative cremains 7/24/09 The idea of mixing human ashes with paper pulp to make a book - a "bibliocadaver" - was just a joke. But Raven Collins will incorporate human ashes into a painted portrait. Man's ashes are stolen from church before funeral in California.

Spontaneous human combustion 6/9/09 A mysterious recent occurrence in which a man was "engulfed in flames" for no known reason.

Elusive animals 6/4/09 Images of rare Javan rhinoceros caught by motion-sensor camera. Frog in India reemerges after a century. New rodent discovered in Brazil.

Rossetti's menagerie 5/1/09 A depressed wombat.

Prosimians 4/25/09 Tarsier's resemblance to Yoda (2nd image). Richard Branson plans to create lemur colony on undeveloped Caribbean island he owns.

Bears in the news 4/24/09 Australian customs surprised by bear's head. Swedish boy accidentally disturbs, and is attacked by, hibernating bear. Berlin's Knut died and people are protesting plans to preserve and exhibit his remains in a museum.

Robo-animals 4/9/09 Miniature horse in Texas given artificial leg. Florida orthodontist repairs turtles' shells. A turtle rescued in Florida had eaten so much debris in the ocean that it "pooped plastic for a month." A pet turtle causes a house fire in Brooklyn.

Cyclops 4/3/09 One-eyed baby dies shortly after birth.

Centenarians - and then some 3/26/09 Frank Buckles, the last living U.S. World War II veteran, died at 110. North Carolina native Hollace Wells died at 102. Twins reach 100 in Oregon. Frank Neuhauser, winner of 1st national spelling bee, died at 97. Houdini's last surviving stage assistant, Dorothy Young, died at 103. Buster Martin, marathon runner at 101, died. Sally Gordon retires at 102 "while she's still young." U.S. District Judge Wesley Brown is still hearing federal cases at the age of 103. World's oldest man Walter Breuning died aged 114, so title passed to Jirouemon Kimura at 114.

Disturbingly young parents 2/14/09 A grandmother at age 23.

First U.S. face transplant! 12/17/08 First full face transplant in U.S. performed in Boston.

Traumatic skull injuries 11/25/08 Chinese man had a knife in his skull for 4 years. Scientists believe they may be able to predict future antisocial behavior in scans of children's brains.

Amputation 10/19/08 Sleeping man run over by mulching machine. Man dies after falling into pasta machine. Canadian man's prosthetic leg is stolen from his house and California man's prosthetic leg is stolen from his backyard. Patient with only one limb injures nurse. America's most injured soldier D.J. Skelton redeploys to Afghanistan. One-legged college wrestler has perfect season and wins national title. Outstanding penmanship awarded to student born with no hands.

Lethal cocktail

Allow me to make this article more understandable by organizing it a little differently:

Among the 35 states, U.S. Military, and Federal Government that currently have death penalty statutes, only one state (Nebraska) does not have lethal injection as a primary or optional method of execution. The protocol for most jurisdictions authorizes the use of a combination of the 3 drugs listed below, but states have been facing issues of availability and the shortages have disrupted executions.

The 1st injection is sodium pentothal, a barbiturate that renders the prisoner unconscious. The only U.S. manufacturer of the drug is the Illinois-based company Hospira, but when they moved its manufacture overseas, they were asked to guarantee that it wouldn't be used to put inmates to death. "Based on this understanding, we cannot take the risk that we will be held liable by the Italian authorities if the product is diverted for use in capital punishment. Exposing our employees or facilities to liability is not a risk we are prepared to take," said a company spokesman. Any supply already on hand is due to expire in March.

The 2nd injection, pancuronium bromide, is a muscle relaxant that paralyzes the diaphragm and lungs.

The 3rd injection of potassium chloride causes cardiac arrest.

While Hospira claims it has long deplored the use of its drugs in executions, not only did it regret having to stop production, it continues to make the two other drugs used in lethal injections. Each chemical is lethal in the amounts administered, but by using them in combination, the implementation of capital punishment is arguably more humane. The current shortage of sodium pentothal has affected the states of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, even those that turned to a British source - until the British government, too, banned its export for use in executions. Instead of following the lead of England and Italy and 93 other countries around the world in abolishing the death penalty, Oklahoma has started injecting the pentobarbitol we commonly use to euthanize our pets.

Le sang d'un roi

"The blood of a king." That's why this otherwise artful gourd takes on a more sinister character. It was a pivotal moment in French history, a few years after the revolution had begun. The monarchy had been abolished and the king was stripped of his title by the Republican government. He had been arrested and imprisoned for high treason, and a reprieve had been voted down. So on the morning of January 21, 1793, Louis XVI (1754-1793) was executed before a large crowd. His spiritual advisor, English priest Henry Essex Edgeworth, accompanied him and described what he heard and saw:

"He was proceeding, when a man on horseback, in the national uniform, and with a ferocious cry, ordered the drums to beat. Many voices were at the same time heard encouraging the executioners. They seemed reanimated themselves, in seizing with violence the most virtuous of Kings, they dragged him under the axe of the guillotine, which with one stroke severed his head from his body. All this passed in a moment. The youngest of the guards, who seemed about eighteen, immediately seized the head, and showed it to the people as he walked round the scaffold; he accompanied this monstrous ceremony with the most atrocious and indecent gestures. At first an awful silence prevailed; at length some cries of 'Vive la Republique!' were heard. By degrees the voices multiplied and in less than ten minutes this cry, a thousand times repeated became the universal shout of the multitude, and every hat was in the air."

Immediately afterward, the excited crowd members rushed the scaffold to dip handkerchiefs into the spilled blood as souvenirs. Among them was Maximilien Bourdaloue, whose name is inscribed on the gourd along with images of key figures of the French Revolution. The gunpowder gourd became a reliquary for this morbid keepsake and was supposedly given to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte before passing into the hands of an Italian family at the turn of the 20th c. The family contacted geneticists at the University of Bologna to test the residual blood in the gourd, although the handkerchief had long since vanished. Member of the team Davide Pettener said, "It’s a very strange story. We thought it was a joke at first because we work on population genetics. But we realized it’s very important from a historic point of view.”

The scientists scraped out 5 small samples of the dried blood to analyze the DNA, and published their results in Forensic Science International: Genetics. A gene from the Y chromosome (inherited from the father), indicated a male with blue eyes, which the king was known to have. They hope to match mitochondrial DNA (inherited from the mother) to a descendant of either the king or his mother. If they can't find a living relative, they will petition the French authorities for permission to take a sample from the dried heart of Louis XVI’s son, Dauphin Louis-Charles, who died at age 10. This relic resides in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Denis outside Paris. “A match on the Y chromosome of the Dauphin will immediately authenticate the blood as belonging to the king Louis XVI,” says team leader Carles Lalueza-Fox of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. At that point the gourd, presently valued at $700,000, would presumably be reappraised.

Gibbets and guillotines

It can all be a bit confusing. The gibbet was a structure like a gallows on which a body was exposed after execution. But not in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, where it was an early form of the guillotine - except that Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814) had not yet proposed the use of a mechanical device to carry out the death penalty in France, so his name was not used for it.

The posthumous punishment of gibbeting, also known as "hanging in chains," was usually reserved for traitors, murderers, highwaymen, and pirates. Gibbets could be seen spotting the landscape of Warwickshire, Somerset, Surrey, and Devon until the practice was outlawed in England in 1834. Here is an eyewitness account: "There is no other form of execution but hanging; it is thought that the taking of life is sufficient punishment for any crime without worse torture. After hanging murderers are, however, punished in a particular fashion. They are first hung on the common gibbet, their bodies are then covered with tallow and fat substances, over this is placed a tarred shirt fastened down with iron bands, and the bodies are hung with chains to the gibbet, which is erected on the spot, or as near as possible to the place, where the crime was committed, and there it hangs till it falls to dust." Gibbeting was also used as a deterrent to criminals in Amsterdam, where an aging Rembrandt (1606-1669) rowed to the site where the corpse of 18-year-old Elsje Christiaens (1st image) was strung up with the ax she had used to kill her landlady in 1664.

The Halifax gibbet was used between 1286 and 1650 to behead some 80 male and female prisoners. More than 100 years later, a replica was erected at the spot where the original had stood. The original is depicted (2nd image) as it appeared in the 17th c. and described in 1822: "The platform, four feet high, and thirteen feet square, faced on every side with stone, was ascended by a flight of steps; in the middle of this platform were placed two upright pieces of timber, five yards high, joined by a cross beam of timber at the top; within these was a square block of wood, four feet and a half long, which moved in grooves, and had an iron axe fastened in its lower edge, the weight of which was seven pounds eleven ounces; it was ten inches and a half long, seven inches over at the top, and nine at the bottom, and towards the top had two holes to fasten it to the block. The axe is still to be seen at the gaol, in Halifax: the platform remains, but has been hid, for many years past, under a mountain of rubbish."

The guillotine was used to behead as many as 40,000 in France during the 1793-1794 Reign of Terror and remained the official method of execution until 1981, when capital punishment was outlawed. The last public use of the guillotine was the beheading of Eugen Weidmann in 1939, after which execution was carried out behind closed doors. It has finally come out of hiding and is on display at an exhibit about crime and punishment at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The horse-drawn cart that carried Marie Antoinette (1755-1793) and others to the guillotine is called a "tumbrel" - except when that word is used to refer to the medieval punishment of the ducking (or cucking) stool, but that only further confuses the issue...

Tyburn tree

If you have done any reading about the history of executions, you will already be familiar with the Tyburn tree. This most famous of gallows was located in the center of London and was used to carry out public executions on Mondays, from 1596 to 1783 (although the site had been used for this purpose since the 13th century). A typical crowd would number 10,000, but the morbid events would sometimes draw more than 50,000. Also known as the "triple tree" because of its configuration (2nd image), it was used to hang multiple condemned prisoners simultaneously - the most being 24 in 1649. Five of those hanged from Tyburn tree were children under the age of 14, and a small percentage were women, but most were men under age 21. Capitalpunishment.org describes a typical 1750s execution at Tyburn:

"The execution process began at around 7 o'clock in the morning when the condemned men and women would be led in fetters (handcuffs and leg-irons) into the Press Yard in Newgate. Here the blacksmith would remove the fetters and the Yeoman of the Halter would tie the criminals' hands in front of them (so that they were able to pray when they reached Tyburn) and place the rope (or halter, as it was known) round their necks, coiling the free end round their bodies....When the pinioning was completed, they were placed in open horse drawn carts sitting on their coffins and the procession consisting of the Under Sheriff, the Ordinary (Newgate's prison chaplain), the hangman and his assistants, and a troop of javelin men started out for Tyburn about two miles away. The streets would be lined with crowds, especially if the criminals were particularly notorious, and there would often be insults and more solid objects hurled at them and their escorts on the way. A stop was often made at St. Sepulchre's Church and two public houses along the way where the criminals were customarily given a drink....On arrival at Tyburn, often some three hours later, the condemned were greeted by a large unruly crowd who had come to watch the spectacle - it was considered an excellent day out. The carts were each backed under one of the three beams of the gallows and the prisoners were positioned at the tail of the cart and tied up to the beam with only a small amount of slack left in the rope. The Ordinary would pray with them and when he had finished, the hangman pulled white night caps over their faces. When everything was ready, the horses were whipped away leaving the prisoners suspended. They would only have a few inches of drop and thus many of them would writhe in agony for some moments. The hangman, his assistants and sometimes the prisoners' relatives might pull on the prisoners' legs to hasten their end. After half an hour or so, the bodies were cut down and claimed by friends and relatives or in the case of murderers, sent for dissection at Surgeons' Hall."

The location of this infamous site is marked (3rd image) at the junction of N.E. Hyde Park, Edware Road, and Oxford Street. Tyburn Convent (be sure to click on their sophisticated website) is located nearby and honors the more than 100 Catholic martyrs put to death there during the Protestant Reformation, as depicted in a stained glass window (1st image).

Madame Tussaud

There really was a Madame Tussaud (1761-1850) and the famous wax museums are eponymous. She began life as Marie Grosholtz and learned the art of wax modelling from Swiss physician Philippe Curtius (1741-1794), for whom her widowed mother kept house, first in Bern and then in Paris. Dr. Curtius first modelled in wax to illustrate anatomy, but then applied the art to portraiture and moved to France to populate a cabinet of wax figures which many notable figures came to his house (and later to his two galleries) to see. Marie learned wax modelling from Curtius and began creating figures in 1778: French philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Voltaire (1694-1778), and American statesman Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). During the French Revolution, Marie - who had lived at Versailles for a time, teaching art to the daughter of Louis XVI (1754-1793) - was imprisoned on suspicion of Royalist sympathies and condemned to be executed. At the last minute (her hair had already been shorn for the guillotine), she was spared because of her talent in wax work. She was employed to make death masks of the beheaded notables, many of whom were her friends. Among them was Queen Marie Antoinette (1754-1793), who was guillotined 9 months after the king. Her execution is illustrated above, as are her death mask and wax figure. Marie took the wax imprint of the queen's face as her body lay on the grass awaiting interment in a mass grave as soon as the gravediggers returned from lunch. This post was prompted by an 1886 article in the New York Times that I came across this morning: the paper reported that the buyer for Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum passed up the opportunity to purchase at auction the 4-wheeled morgue cart into which Marie Antoinette's guillotined head had dropped.

Jack Ketch

Jack Ketch (d. 1686) is the "Kleenex" of hangmen - he was so notorious that his name became generic for the hangmen who followed.* Here are his particulars:

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He was appointed as English executioner c. 1663 by Charles II (1630-1685) and was famous for executing notables, but infamous for botching their executions. His bungling of the executions of many of the innocent Roman Catholics condemned after the Popish Plot in 1678 was documented in a broadside. Ketch published his own broadside - an "apologie" - to counter claims that he was drunk or purposely caused needless suffering. He blamed his clumsy beheading of William Russell, Lord Russell (1639–1683), on being distracted while taking aim. An eyewitness reported that after the first ineffectual blow, Russell looked up at him and said, "You dog! Did I give you ten guineas to use me so inhumanly?" When James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth (1649-1685) brought this up during his own execution, Ketch was unnerved and it took him 5 strokes of the axe and a slice of a knife to sever his head. The reputations of both the executed and the executioner drew an enormous audience: "...it goes without saying that a Ketch execution was, by far, the crowd favourite."

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*The illustration is in fact one of his successors, whose name was actually John Price. This Jack Ketch is shown being arrested for the murder of a woman - a crime for which he was hanged in 1718.

Pirates

No editorial on the Somali pirates, except to say that they must stop or be stopped. Recently, thousands of dolphins assisted in the effort. According to China Radio International on Monday, the animals blocked suspected Somali pirate ships when they were trying to attack Chinese merchant ships passing the Gulf of Aden. Faced with their enormous numbers, the pirates stopped and turned away.

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The fates of two of the most infamous pirates are illustrated below. Captain William Kidd (1645-1701) was convicted of piracy (although some historians believe he was unjustly vilified) and hanged at Execution Dock in London. The noose broke on the first attempt, but he was executed on the second attempt, after which his body was gibbeted and suspended over the Thames River for 20 years as a warning to would-be pirates. Edward Teach (c. 1680-1718), better known as Blackbeard, had retired from his notorious life of piracy, but the governor of Virginia sent a ship to eliminate the threat anyway. As it approached Blackbeard's vessel, it was attacked. During the ensuing battle, Teach was shot and stabbed, and bled to death. His head was cut off and hung from the ship's bowsprit as a trophy. After the reward was claimed, the head was placed on a pike on the shore of the Hampton River as a warning to other pirate wannabes.

Hanging in chains

The recent pirate activity in the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia has prompted suggestions from bloggers that the pirates be gibbeted. Being against the death penalty, I disagree. But that punishment has historically been associated with piracy and used to serve as a warning to any considering it. Gibbeting or hanging in chains followed execution and meant displaying the body in a cage until it fell apart from decomposition and scavenging. One of the most famous pirates, Captain William Kidd (c. 1645-1701), was hanged, tarred, and strung up in a cage by the Thames River, where it was visible for years. As it turns out, the only complete gibbet in the U.S. is on display at the Atwater Kent Museum--I'm adding it to my list for the next time I'm in Philadelphia.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My favorite Thanksgiving story from last year is this: Rich Portnoy of Minneapolis roasting a 72-lb. turkey to definitively win an ongoing contest with his sister Rachel! This year I was fascinated by the turkey slaughter going on behind Sarah Palin in this interview at an event at which she pardoned a turkey. I find the official turkey pardon a ridiculous tradition, as do some other bloggers. But did you know that animals were tried, convicted, and executed in Europe for centuries?

The Death of Innocents

I attended a dramatic reading of Sister Helen Prejean's book The Death of Innocents last night. She tells the story of two wrongfully executed men. There are many reasons to abolish capital punishment - killing innocent people is a strong one, and the State has done just that, she points out, more than 130 times in the past few decades. I had seen Sister Helen speak before at Georgetown after Dead Man Walking, her book about spiritually advising a (guilty) man on death row, had been made into a film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. She spoke of the sneakiness of God and said that he leads you through door after door and if you knew what that far door opened to--in her case, death row--you would have never gone through. When she kneeled next to me for this picture, I reminded her of that story and she said, "You know a little about the sneakiness of God, don't you?" Yep.

Anthropodermic binding

William Corder (1803-1828) was convicted and executed for Suffolk, England's infamous Murder in the Red Barn. The judge passed sentence as follows:

Nothing remains now for me to do but to pass upon you the awful sentence of the law, and that sentence is - That you be taken back to the prison from whence you came, and that you be taken from thence, on Monday next, to a place of Execution, and that you there be hanged by the Neck until you are Dead ; and that your body shall afterwards be dissected and anatomized ; and may the Lord God Almighty, of his infinite goodness, have mercy on your soul!

So my first solid stab at researching public dissection is to look further into this case. I had studied it from another angle during graduate school, because in addition to Corder's body being anatomized, his skin was tanned and used to bind a transcript of his trial. Pictured above--along with a portrait, his death mask, and an illustration of his hanging--it can still be seen today. It was one of the many anthropodermic bindings I wrote and made presentations about. Another, which I had a look at when I was in Boston, is The Highwayman.