new improved execution

[merciful evans]

by evans

the marketing of electrocution

prologue

we have electric toothbrushes

we have electric blue

electric guitars and keyboards too

so what about an electric pew?

it don’t sound too bad…

was the chair was invented by southwick the dentist?

what’s the matter with them peg pulling roughs?

Aren’t injections bad enough?

albert southwick had the best of intentions

and with them he paved a path to hell

and also to a novel invention

the story of the electric chair

1880

when hanging goes awry

it’s a distasteful way to die

slow strangulation

horrid decapitation

should we then perpetuate

a time honoured mistake

that makes both meek & great, shiver & quake?

1881

whiskey makes folk legless

and southwick made em peg less

one old fellow who’d had too much

was seen by southwick to touch…

a dynamo in buffalo

without a cry, nor even a bellow

the unlucky and poor old fellow

dropped like a stone

and lay there prone

southwick also had a mate

a senator of new york state

to whom he recounted the fate of the late prostrate drinker

and conceived a notion with which to tinker

‘friend and senator, lend me your ear

allow me to bend it, allow it to hear

an idea,

is AC or DC, to be

or not to be

a better gateway to eternity?’

neck stretching is hardly a fetching way to dispatch

a felon you’ve just managed to catch

but what other way might we execute `em?

so southwick piped up, with his novel solution

it was nothing less than electrocution.

the new term then come into vogue

a brand new way to dispatch the rogues

the gallows be something we’ve come to hate,

so lets attach some terminals & terminate

1886

chapter three-five-two

told the commission what to do

‘too many times, we just muff it,

think of a new way to make em snuff it

mull over the pros and cons,

the ins & outs, the rights & wrongs

prepare a proposal, and when it’s mature

bring it here to the legislature’

1887

george westinghouse, wouldn’t hurt a mouse

and wanted electricity for every city

and indeed for every house

and so did thomas edison

but george & tom, didn’t get on

they would compete, until the defeat

of one or the other of em

so with the electric age dawning

edison published ‘A Warning’

AC versus DC,

he called george’s AC unsuitable

but edison controlled DC

and this was irrefutable

1887

edison carped ‘AC was hazardous,

it would take out everyone but lazarus’

presently…

his rationale would be clear to all

but unpleasantly…

he said ‘girls and boys, put down your toys’

animals are sought, and for every one caught,

I will pay a quarter, to each and every son and daughter,

to help me with the new fangled slaughter’

so edison then lured dogs & cats

onto one thousand volt AC mats

where large numbers were electrocuted

but he didn’t get into trouble for it

except with his neighbours

who cried ‘do us a favour!

you with your bones & saucers of milk

have mercy on pets and all their ilk’

but edison the git,

by now was into it

so for tiddles & rover, it was all over

all this death and pain

was just smear campaign

against george’s electricity

so we may see,

and indeed agree

that AC,

is far too risky

1888

elbridge gerry was a founding father

a declaration of independence signer

his mere name got massachusetts in a lather

to massachusians, there was no-one finer

his grandson was elbridge gerry too

this wasn’t a coincidence,

they did it on purpose

this way, they had an elbridge gerry surplus

with gerry stood an albany judge called hale

who had sent all and sundry to gallows & jail

finally came southwick, that dentist again,

who held electrocution,

as the new solution

but for now the ear stayed in his pocket

and by the time they convened, he’d pretty much forgot it

they were given a committee to sit on

the dentist, the judge, and the founding grandson

and these three became the commission

and their mission;

to look into methods of execution

it was all a bit of a foregone conclusion

which makes it all the more grisly & gruesome

harold brown

it took much to convince that panel of berks

that electrocution would in fact work

harold brown did the convincing

and for what he did in other circumstances

he could earn a lynching

then came lots of blabber & scribbling of course

but by fall, the death count outweighed the discourse

24 dogs, 2 calves and an 88 stone horse

the new york panel was persuaded

but the same example should now be paraded, about the entire state

so the killing did not abate

brown took his show on the road,

as a promoter

his mission to convince the voters

of the mercy that AC bestowed

to consolidate & persuade him,

thomas edison employed and paid him

so brown continued tom’s toil

to broil with an induction coil

creatures for public edification

and maintain the edison-sation

roll up, roll up,

witness the marvel of the age

electrocution!

turn the juice on!

just a few sundry blocks from your door

try to imagine this if you can,

he even broiled an orang utan, whose hair caught on fire

what better way to convince, persuade and inspire?

the new york times were a fly in the ointment

they felt for the hangmen deprived of employment

those victims of history being made

how would they learn another trade?

1889

the year that the law was altered

the proponents never faltered

the new bill

outlined the means to kill

only edison’s rival had the means

to realise these schemes

‘we want generators for our prison’

but george westinghouse wouldn’t listen

‘i wont sell them to you’, he avowed

‘despite what the law has allowed’

it was edison and brown that turned it around

and they snuck in three westinghouse generators

so empowering the lawful exterminators

1890

ed the electrician

then serving the prison

was given a mission one day

make us a chair

we mustn’t let the poor sitter collapse

so make sure to add several strong straps

otherwise the style is up to you

a cherry finish queen anne would do

a high-back stand would be grand

or perhaps a chippendale in blue

so ed davis, gave us a contemporary pew

with a matching hood, and a switch just out of view

it wasn’t long before the switch was pulled

the first victim was willie ziegler

it seems that willie

killed his mistress tille

with an axe in buffalo, new york

‘hey we got one!

lets fire up the chair & see it work!’

and then it transpired, that george desired

to halt the execution

though it may seem silly,

there were appeals for willie,

and george westinghouse funded them

thus george did graft on willie’s behalf

edison and brown appear as witnesses for the state

to feed the need for progress, reassure and satiate

and george said…

‘electrocution is cruel and unusual,

for your want of compassion I accuse you all’

george was defeated, the appeal denied,

and the decision repeated, at the supreme court

not once, but twice brought

the same pronouncement, verdict and grim announcement

now the vengeful have their day

and did it work?

well it did

but it didn’t work straight away

at death’s chamber, all assembled

the press, the clergy, and those dissembled

after all the testing and verbosity

willie the pioneer aroused curiosity

once the juice was flowing in him

how long would he last before it killed him?

they jolted him first for 17 seconds

and then again for 70, but they hadn’t reckoned

after all that testing, to wonder why

it took eight minutes for willie to die

and a guard witness, said this…

‘the man never suffered a bit of pain’

but then again

the new york herald disagreed

and the lead story decreed…

‘strong men fainted & fell like logs’

george westinghouse was also agog

he hung his head & said

‘they’d have done better with an axe,

those responsible have turned their backs!’

wickham the dentist had this to add

‘we live in a higher civilisation from this day on’

if the last remark is to be believed

its seems to me

that we should all join hands and return into the sea

epilogue

brown & edison swore in unison

‘this method is quick and painless’

but how brainless, is politics, and how cold

when those who hold, a franchise or an agenda

refuse to see, or to remember

what is plain and clear

to all who still know pain and fear

and how unjust, that for years to come

that ‘westinghoused’ became the term

to those led away to burn

1903

topsy

it may not now seem all that relevant

but hear the tale of topsy the elephant

plucked from her native african nation

an immigrant of 30 years duration

she joined a herd at luna park

where barkers hustle and hustlers bark

and its true that topsy had some form

she killed three, now all sadly mourned

the last being her trainer, a no brainer

who, as drunk as you could get

fed topsy a lighted cigarette

topsy was owned by dundy & thomas

eager to garner our dollars from us

and dundy & thomas, that pair of nancies

ignored the mitigating circumstances

they fed her carrots with cyanide

topsy woofed em down, with not so much as a frown

and when they realised, that she hadn’t died

they rejected more of the cyanide

or any such potion

and conceived a fine money making notion

a public hanging would be a media festival

they’d charge admission at the entrance vestibule

and with tens of thousands of punters in

imagine what profits that would bring!

but the ASPCA,

who protect the species say… ‘nay!’

‘hangings abolished in new york so there!

that’s why we have the electric chair’

‘right’, said thomas & dundy, ‘we’ll bring in edison

to administer a dose of his electric medicine’

thomas & dundy were cunning

they could now put up their feet

coz thomas edison, he came a-running

this sort of thing being right up his street

and since her sentence was never commuted

topsy the elephant was electrocuted

though not in an electric chair

they didn’t think that quite fair

edison filmed the whole spectacle

and hawked it among the wealthy & respectable

to drum up all the exposure he could muster

his standing furthered by topsy the tusker

the poor old girl,

they should’ve left her in her own far world

running around the plains and savannah

eating trees and the odd banana

she wasn’t cut out for a new york home

if only they’ left her well alone

edison might content with dogs & cats

to burn on his electric mat

by evans.

© october 05

[merciful evans]

a week to the day.

youre all a bunch of miserable d'oylees !

[Steve]

We're all stunned into silence! (And trying to verify the historical facts!)

Do they let you out on th weekend as well?