Capital Punishment in New Zealand - Method

Method

The method of execution was by hanging. At first, there were many possible execution sites all around the country, but later, the only two cities where hangings were carried out were Wellington (the capital) and Auckland (now the largest city). Initially, there was no professional hangman employed—the executioner was simply chosen from among any who were deemed qualified. On occasion, convicted criminals were employed as hangmen, often in exchange for reduced sentences or monetary reward. In 1877, the sheriff of Blenheim recommended that a professional executioner be hired. Tom Long, an Irishman who claimed to have been an executioner in Australia, was hired as the first official hangman. He was the only official hangman to be publicly known; others remained anonymous.

Read more about this topic:  Capital Punishment In New Zealand

Famous quotes containing the word method:

    As a science of the unconscious it is a therapeutic method, in the grand style, a method overarching the individual case. Call this, if you choose, a poet’s utopia.
    Thomas Mann (1875–1955)

    Letters are above all useful as a means of expressing the ideal self; and no other method of communication is quite so good for this purpose.... In letters we can reform without practice, beg without humiliation, snip and shape embarrassing experiences to the measure of our own desires....
    Elizabeth Hardwick (b. 1916)

    The insidiousness of science lies in its claim to be not a subject, but a method. You could ignore a subject; no subject is all-inclusive. But a method can plausibly be applied to anything within the field of consciousness.
    Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)