KEMMLER DEAD

The Cortland Democrat, Friday, August 8, 1890.

KEMMLER DEAD.

EXECUTED BY THE USE OF ELECTRICITY.

It was a Shocking Affair—The First Current Perhaps Did not Kill Him—A Second one Finished Him—It was Applied Four and a half Minutes.

   AUBURN, Aug. 6.—William Kemmler was killed at 6:40 o'clock this morning. The first shock was not successful. He revived and there was apparent respiration, though the doctors claim that there was no consciousness. After some delay the current was turned on and kept for four and a half minutes, the first contact having been fifteen seconds.

   At 6:38 A. M. the door at the right of the execution chair, leading toward the execution room, opened and Warden Durston's figure appeared in the doorway. Behind him walked a spruce-looking, broad-shouldered little man, full-bearded with carefully arranged hair clustering around his forehead. He was dressed in a suit of new clothing, a sack coat, a vest of dark gray material and trousers of a mixed yellow pattern, a white shirt, whose polished front was exposed directly below a little bow of lawn of a black and white check pattern. This was William Kemmler, the man who was about to undergo the sentence of death. Behind him walked Dr. O. A. Houghton and Chaplain Yates.

   Kemmler was by far the coolest man in the party. He did not look about the room with any special interest. He hesitated as the door was closed behind him and carefully locked by an attendant on the other side, as though he did not know exactly what to do.

   "Give me a chair, will you," said the Warden. Someone quickly handed him a wooden chair, which he placed in front and a little to the right of the execution chair, facing the little circle of men.

   Kemmler sat down, composedly looking about him without any evidence of fear or of especial interest in the event. His face was not stolid, it was not indifferent. He looked, if anything, as though he was rather pleased at being the centre of attraction.

   Warden Durston stood at the left of the chair with his hand on the back of it, and almost at the moment that Kemmler took his seat he began to speak in short, quick periods.

   "Now, gentlemen," he said, "this is William Kemmler. I have warned him that he has got to die, and if he has anything to say he will say it."

   As the Warden finished, Kemmler looked up and said in a high-keyed voice, without any hesitation and as though he had prepared himself with a speech:

   "Well, I wish everyone good luck in this world, and I think I am going to a good place, and the papers has been saying a lot of stuff that isn't so. That's all I have to say."

   With the conclusion of the speech he turned his back on the jury, and took off his coat and handed it to the Warden. This disclosed the fact that a hole had been cut from the band of the trousers down so as to expose the base of the spine. When his coat was off Kemmler turned in the direction of the door through which he had come into the room and began to unbutton his vest. At the same time the Warden was pulling the interfering drapery of his shirt through the hole in the trousers and cutting it off so as to leave the little surface of flesh against which one of the electrodes was to press absolutely bare. Warden Durston called attention to the fact that it was not necessary to remove his vest, and Kemmler calmly buttoned it again and carefully arranged his tie.

   "Don't hurry about this matter," said the Warden, "Be perfectly cool." He was perfectly cool. He was by all odds the coolest man in the room. When his tie was arranged he sat down in the electric chair as quickly as though he was sitting down to dinner. Warden Durston stood on the right and Geo. Vieling, of Albany, on the left. They began immediately to adjust the straps around Kemmler's body, the condemned man holding up his arms so as to give them every assistance. When the straps had been adjusted about the body, the arms were fastened down and then the Warden leaned over and parted Kemmler's feet so as to bring his legs nearer the chair.

   While the straps were being arranged Kemmler said to Warden Durston and his assistant: "Take your time. Don't be in a hurry. Be sure that everything is all right." Two or three times he repeated these phrases. Warden Durston reassured him with the remark that it wouldn't hurt, and that he (Durston) would be with him all through. But it was not fear with Kemmler; it was rather a certain pride in the exactness of the experiment.

   When the straps had been adjusted to the body and limbs, the Warden placed his hand on Kemmler's head and held it against the rubber cushion which ran down the back of the chair. Kemmler's eyes were turned toward the opposite side of the room. Before, they had followed the Warden in his movements about. Then the condemned man made one or two remarks in a perfectly clear and composed tone of voice. ''Well, I wish everybody good luck." was one of them and "Durston, see that things are all right," was another.

   Deputy Vieling unfastened the thumbscrews which held the figure four at the back of the chair in place and began to lower it so that the rubber cup which held the saturated sponge pressed against the top of Kemmler's head. The Warden assisted in the preparation by holding Kemmler's head. When the cup had been adjusted and clamped in place Kemmler said: "Oh, you'd better press that down farther, I guess. Press that down." So the head piece was unclamped and pressed further down. While it was being done Kemmler said: "Well, I want to do the best I can. I can't do any better than that." Warden Durston took in his hand the leather harness which was to be adjusted to Kemmler's head. It was a series of broad leather straps which went across the forehead and the chin of the man in the chair. The top strap pressed down against the nose of Kemmler until it flattened it down slightly over his face. As the harness was put in place Doctor Spitzka, who was standing near the chair, said softly, "God bless you, Kemmler," and the condemned man answered, "Thank you," softly.

   The door leading into the room where the switches were arranged was partly opened. A man stood in the doorway. The dynamo in the machine shop was running at a good speed and the volt meter on the wall registered a little more than 1,000 volts. Warden Durston turned to the assembled doctors—those immediately around the chair—and said: "Do the doctors say that it is all right?" Scarcely a minute had elapsed since the adjustment of the straps. There was no time for Kemmler to have weakened, even if his marvelous courage had not been equal to the task to suffer the delay. But he was as calm in the chair as he had been before he entered the room and during the process of his confinement by the straps which held him close.

   At the Warden's question Doctor Fell stepped forward with a long syringe in his hand and quickly but deftly wetted the two sponges. The water which he put on them was impregnated with salt. Doctor Spitzka answered the Warden's question with a sharp "All right," which was echoed by others about him. "Ready?" said Durston again, and then with "Goodby," he stepped to the door and through the opening said to someone in the next room—but to whom will probably never be known with certainty—"Everything is ready." In almost immediate response, and as the stop-watches in the hands of some of the witnesses registered 6:431/2, the electric current was turned on. There was a sudden convulsion of the frame in the chair. A spasm went over it from head to foot. The straps and springs held it so firmly that no limb or other part of the body stirred more than a small fraction of an inch from its resting place. The twitching that the muscles of the face underwent gave to it for a moment an expression of pain. But no cry escaped from the lips, which were free to move at will. No sound came forth to suggest that consciousness lasted more than an infinitesimal fraction of a second—beyond the calculation of the human mind.

   The body remained in this rigid position for seventeen seconds. The jury and the witnesses, who had remained seated up to this moment, came hurriedly forward and surrounded the chair. There was no movement of the body beyond that first convulsion. Doctor McDonald held a stop-watch in his hand and as the seconds flew by he noted their passage. Doctor Spitzka, too, looked at the stop-watch and as the tenth second expired he cried out "Stop!" "Stop" cried other voices about.
   The warden cried out "Stop!" to the man at the lever. A quick movement of the arm and the electric current was switched off. There was a relaxation of the body in the chair—a slight relaxation—but the straps held it so firmly that there was not a quarter of an inch variation in the position of any part of the frame. The quiet little group around the chair grew business-like. "He's dead" said Dr. Spitzka calmly. "Oh, he's dead," echoed Doctor McDonald with firm confidence. The rest of the witnesses added their acquiescence. The next question was, what was to be done with the body? Doctor Spitzka stepped forward and called attention to the appearance of the nose, which he said had an undoubted post-mortem color. No one disputed this. Doctor Spitzka turned around in a business-like way and pointing to the harness said: "Oh, undo that. Now the body can be taken to the hospital." The Warden replied that he could not let any of the witnesses go until he had their certificate.

   All of this conversation took but a minute. Doctor Blach was bending over the body looking at the exposed skin. Suddenly he cried out sharply: "Doctor McDonald, see that rupture?" In a moment Doctor Spitzka and Doctor McDonald had bent over and looking where Doctor Blach was pointing at a little red spot on the hand that rested on the right arm of the chair. The index finger of the hand had curved, backward as the flexor muscles contracted and had scraped a thumb on the back of the hand. There was nothing strange in this alone, but what was strange was that the rupture was dropping blood, "Turn the current on instantly this man is not dead," cried Doctor Spitzka. Faces grew white and forms fell back from the chair.

   Warden Durston sprang to the doorway and cried: "Turn on the current.'' But the current could not be turned on. When the signal to stop had come the operator had pressed the little button which gave the sign to the engineer to stop the dynamo. The dynamo was almost at a standstill and the volt meter registered an almost imperceptible current. The operator sprang to the button and gave a sharp, quick signal. There was a rapid response but quick as it was, not quick enough to anticipate the signs of what may or may not have been reviving consciousness. As the group of horror-stricken witnesses stood helplessly by, all eyes fixed on the chair, Kemmler's lips began to drip spittle, and in a moment more his chest moved and from his mouth came a heavy stertorous [sic] sound, increasing with every respiration—if respiration it was. There was no voice but that of the Warden crying to the operator to turn on the current, and the wheezing sound, half groan, which forced itself past the tightly clenched lips sounded through the still chamber with ghastly distinctness.

   Some of the witnesses turned away from the sight. One of them lay down faint and sick. It takes, a long, long time to tell the story. It seemed a long, long time reaching a climax. In reality there were but seventy-three seconds in the interval which elapsed between the moment when the first sound issued from Kemmler's lips until the response to the signal came from the dynamo room. It came with the same suddenness that marked the first shock which passed through Kemmler's body. The sound which had horrified the listeners about the chair was cut off sharply as the body once more became rigid. The slimy ooze still dripped from the mouth and ran slowly down the beard and on to the gray vest. Twice there were twitching of the body as the electricians in the next room threw the current on and off. There was to be no mistake this time about the killing. The dynamo was run up to its highest speed, and again and again the current of 2,000 volts was sent through the body in the chair. How long it was kept in action no one knows.

   To the excited group of men about the chair it seemed an interminable time. Doctor Daniel, who looked at his watch excitedly and who thought that he had an approximate idea of the time at least, said that it was four and a half minutes in all. The Warden's assistant, who stood over the dynamo, said that on the second signal the machinery was run only three and a half minutes altogether.

   It will never be known with any degree of accuracy what the space of time was. No one was anxious to give the signal to stop. All dreaded the responsibility of offering to the man a chance to revive, or to give again at least those appearances of returning animation which had startled and sickened the witnesses a few minutes before. As the anxious groups stood silently watching the body, suddenly there arose from it a white vapor, bearing with it a pungent and sickening odor. The body was burning. Again there were cries to stop the current, and the Warden sprang to the door and gave the quick order to his assistants. The current stopped, and no doubt existed this time but that the current had done its work.

   Doctor Fell turned and said: "Well, there is no doubt about one thing. The man never suffered an iota of pain." In after consultations the other physicians expressed the same belief.

   Was Kemmler dead when his chest moved and his lips gave forth sounds? Was he breathing or was there involuntary and phenomenal action of the chest muscles? Some of the eminent experts in attendance said to the United Press correspondent while the body was still warm in the chair that there was no doubt that there were signs of returning animation, that the respiration—they believed it to be—was growing stronger, and that if the current had not been turned on again he would have revived. Others, and among them Doctor Spitzka, stated with equal positiveness the conviction that the first shock killed Kemmler instantaneously. Doctor Southwick, the father of the system of electricide, believes that Kemmler was dead, but thinks that the current should have been continued longer than seventeen seconds, which was the official time of the first contact. There is no way in which a positive determination of this question can be made. It will always remain a mystery.

THE AUTOPSY.

Some of the Results Shown by the Examination.

   AUBURN, Aug. 6. — The autopsy on Kemmler's body was begun at about 9 o'clock. It was in charge of Doctor Jenkins of New York (who handled the knife), Doctor Daniels, Doctor MacDonald and Doctor Spitzka. Doctor Fell prepared the blood drawn from the body for examination under the microscope. It was found when the body was spread out on the table that a very severe vigor mortis had set in. There was little relaxation, and it was with difficulty that the corpse was straightened out. On examination it was found that the second electrode had burned through the skin and into the flesh at the base of the spine, making a scar nearly five inches in diameter. The heart, lungs and other organs were taken out, and were found to be in a good, healthy condition. They will be preserved for further examination. The brain also was taken out, and it, too, will be carefully examined.

   The examination showed that the brain was hardened directly under the spot where the electric current had come in contact with the skull and that the blood at that spot was hardened, showing that the current had had direct action on the brain.