The methods of inflicting the death penalty have been various, the favorite ways being burning, boiling in oil, boiling in water, breaking on the rack, smothering, beheading, crucifying, stoning, strangling and electrocuting.  Until the middle of the last century they were carried out in the presence of the multitude so that all might be warned by the example.

The number of crimes for which death and bodily torture have been the punishment can scarcely be recorded, and if they could it would be of no value.  They would run into the hundreds and probably the thousands.  A large part of these crimes are now obsolete.  Doubtless more men have been executed for crimes they did not commit and could not commit than for any real wrong of which they were guilty.

Prisons came into fashion later than the death penalty, and as a form of punishment have gradually come to take the place of most death penalties.  Prisons in the past have been loathsome places and not much better than death.  Prisoners have been packed together so closely that life was almost impossible.  To incarcerate victims in prisons has brought terrible punishment not only on the prisoners and their families, but indirectly on the state.  No doubt through the years prisons have been gradually improved.  Many of their terrors have been banished.  People have come to believe that even a prisoner should have some consideration from the state.  Penalties have likewise grown less severe and terms have been shortened, but this course has not been regular or constant; the public readily relaxes into hatred and vengeance, and it is easy to arouse these feelings in men, since they lie very close to the surface.  A constant struggle has always been waged by the humane to make man more kindly, and yet probably his nature does not really change.  A few months of frenzy may easily undo the work of years.

So long as men punish for the sake of punishment, there will be a disagreement between the advocates of long punishment and short punishment, hard punishment and light punishment.  From the nature of things, there is no basis on which this can be determined.  The only thing that throws any light on the question is experience, and men can always differ as to the lessons of experience.  Neither do they remember experience when feelings are concerned.

Punishment can deter only on the ground of the fear that flows from it.  Fear comes from things that are more or less unusual.  Man has little abstract fear of a natural death; it is so unavoidable that it does not even figure in the ordinary affairs of life.  Extreme punishments may grow so common that few give them any concern.  They probably are so common now that the impression they make is not very great.  Lighter and easier punishments would have the same psychological effect.  In many cases a lenient punishment would also eliminate much of the hatred and bitterness against the world that are common to all inmates of prisons.