the length of the fall being regulated by his height and weight. Death results not from real hanging and strangulation, but from a fracture of the cervical vertebrae. Compression of the windpipe by the rope and the obstruction of the circulation aid in the fatal result. Recently the noose has had imbedded in its fibre a metal eyelet which is adjusted tightly beneath the ear and considerably expedites death. The convict is left hanging until life is extinct.
It was long considered essential that executions, like trials, should be public, and be carried out in a manner calculated to impress evil-doers. Partly to this idea, partly to notions of revenge and temporal punishment of sin, is probably due the rigour of the administration of the English law. But the methods of execution were unseemly, as delineated in Hogarth’s print of the execution of the idle apprentice, and were ineffectual in reducing the bulk of crime, which was augmented by the inefficiency of the police and the uncertainty and severity of the law, which rendered persons tempted to commit crime either reckless or confident of escape. The scandals attending public executions led to an attempt to alter the law in 1841, although many protests had been made long before, among them those of the novelist Fielding. But perhaps the most forcible and effectual was that of Charles Dickens in his letters to The Times written after mixing in the crowd gathered to witness the execution of the Mannings at Horsemonger Lane gaol in 1849. After his experiences he came to the conclusion that public executions attracted the depraved and those affected by morbid curiosity; and that the spectacle had neither the solemnity nor the salutary effect which should attend the execution of public justice. His views were strongly resisted in some quarters; and it was not until 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 24) that they were accepted. The last public hanging in England was that of Michael Barrett for murder by causing an explosion at Clerkenwell prison with the object of releasing persons confined there for treason and felony (Ann. Reg., 1868, p. 63). Under the act of 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 24), which was adapted from similar legislation already in force in the Australian colonies convicted murderers are hanged within the walls of a prison. The sentence of the court is that the convict “be hanged by the neck until he is dead.” The execution of the sentence devolves on the sheriff of the county (Sheriffs Act 1887, s. 13). As a general rule the sentence is carried out in England and Ireland at 8 a.m. on a week-day (not being Monday), in the week following the third Sunday after sentence was passed. In old times prisoners were often hanged on the day after sentence was passed; and under the act of 1752 this was made the rule in cases of murder. A public notice of the date and hour of execution must be posted on the prison walls not less than twelve hours before the execution and must remain until the inquest is over. The persons required to be present are the sheriff, the gaoler, chaplain and surgeon of the prison, and such other officers of the prison as the sheriff requires; justices of the peace for the jurisdiction to which the prison belongs, and such of the relatives, or such other persons as the sheriff or visiting justices allow, may also attend. It is usual to allow the attendance of some representatives of the press. The death of the prisoner is certified by the prison surgeon, and a declaration that judgment of death has been executed is signed by the sheriff. An inquest is then held on the body by the coroner for the jurisdiction and a jury from which prison officers are excluded. The certificate and declaration, and a duplicate of the coroner’s inquiry also, are sent to the home office, or in Ireland to the lord-lieutenant, and the body of the prisoner is interred in quicklime within the prison walls if space is available. It is also the practice to toll the bell of the parish or other neighbouring church, for fifteen minutes before and fifteen minutes after the execution. The hoisting of the black flag at the moment of execution was abolished in 1902. The regulations as to execution are printed in the Statutory Rules and Orders, Revised ed. 1904, vol. x. (tits. Prison E. and Prison I). The act of 1868 applies only to executions for murder; but since the passing of the act there have been no executions for any other crime within the United Kingdom. (See further Capital Punishment.)
In Scotland execution by hanging is carried out in the same manner as in England and Ireland, but under the supervision of the magistrates of the burgh in which it is decreed to take place, and in lieu of the inquest required in England and Ireland an inquiry is held at the instance of the procurator-fiscal before a sheriff or sheriff substitute (act of 1868, s. 13). The procedure at the execution is governed by the act of 1868 and the Scottish Prison Rules, rr. 465–469 (Stat. Rules and Orders, Revised ed. 1904, tit. Prison S).
British Dominions beyond the Seas.—Throughout the King’s dominions hanging is the regular method of executing sentence of death. In India the Penal Code superseded the modes of punishment under Mahommedan law, and s. 368 of the Criminal Procedure Code of 1898 provides that sentence of death is to be executed by hanging by the neck.
In Canada the sentence is executed within a prison under conditions very similar to those in England (Criminal Code, 1892; ss. 936-945). In Australia the execution takes place within the prison walls, at a time and place appointed by the governor of the state. See Queensland Code, 1899, s. 664; Western Australia Code, 1901, s. 663; in these states no inquest is held. In Western Australia the governor may cause an aboriginal native to be executed outside a prison. In New Zealand the only mode of execution is by hanging within a prison (Act of 1883).
United States.—In all the states except New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Mississippi, Virginia, and Ohio (see Electrocution) persons sentenced to death are hanged. In Utah the criminal may elect to be shot instead.
The only countries, whose law is not of direct English origin, which inflict capital punishment by hanging are Japan, Austria, Hungary and Russia. (W. F. C.)
HANGÖ, a port and sea-bathing resort situated on the promontory
of Hangöudd, to the extreme south-west of Finland.
Hangö owes its commercial importance to the fact that it is
practically the only winter ice-free port in Finland, and is thus
of value both to the Finnish and the Russian sea-borne trade.
When incorporated in 1874 it had only a few hundred inhabitants;
in 1900 it had 2501 and it has now over six thousand (5986 in
1904). It is connected by railway with Helsingfors and Tammerfors,
and is the centre of the Finnish butter export, which
now amounts to over £1,000,000 yearly. There is a considerable
import of coal, cotton, iron and breadstuffs, the chief exports
being butter, fish, timber and wood pulp. During the period
of emigration, owing to political troubles with Russia, over
12,000 Finns sailed from Hangö in a single year (1901), mostly
for the United States and Canada. Hangö now takes front rank
as a fashionable watering-place, especially for wealthy Russians,
having a dry climate and a fine strand.
HANKA, WENCESLAUS (1791–1861), Bohemian philologist, was born at Horeniowes, a hamlet of eastern Bohemia, on the 10th of June 1791. He was sent in 1807 to school at Königgrätz, to escape the conscription, then to the university of Prague, where he founded a society for the cultivation of the Czech language. At Vienna, where he afterwards studied law, he established a Czech periodical; and in 1813 he made the acquaintance of Joseph Dobrowsky, the eminent philologist. On the 16th of September 1817 Hanka alleged that he had discovered some ancient Bohemian manuscript poems (the Königinhof MS.) of the 13th and 14th century in the church tower of the village of Kralodwor, or Königinhof. These were published in 1818, under the title Kralodworsky Rukopis, with a German translation by Swoboda. Great doubt, however, was felt as to their genuineness, and Dobrowsky, by pronouncing The Judgment of Libussa, another manuscript found by Hanka, an “obvious fraud,” confirmed the suspicion. Some years afterwards Dobrowsky saw fit to modify his decision, but by modern Czech scholars the MS. is regarded as a forgery. A translation into English, The Manuscript of the Queen’s Court, was made by Wratislaw in 1852. The originals were presented by the discoverer to the Bohemian museum at Prague, of which he was appointed librarian in 1818. In 1848 Hanka, who was an ardent Panslavist, took part in the Slavonic congress and
