Word: headsman
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...head should resist deflection. If the black box decides the head feels ripe, it triggers a clutch, which in turn sends a miniature guillotine slashing through the lettuce stalk. In recent tests, the machine lopped off some 4,500 heads an hour -five times more than the nimblest human headsman. Davis engineers are already at work building a pickup machine to follow the cutter...
...Said one: "I would not do it for all the City of London." Even the common hangman refused, although he was first offered a ?200 bonus and then threatened with death by burning. It is still not known who did the job, so heavily covered were the headsman and his assistant. To William Juxon, the Church of England's Bishop of London (and future Archbishop of Canterbury), Charles said: "I am going from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can be." And to his executioner: "I shall say but a short prayer and, when I hold...
...whole body. Is the music delicate, finely and rapidly interwoven? "Watching Lennie do some parts of Scheherezade." says Composer Walter Piston, "is like watching a woman knit." Is it the moment for a powerful initial attack? Lennie will deliver a stroke that is worthy of a medieval headsman (in St. Louis once, he delivered an introductory downbeat so overwhelmingly spectacular that every man in the orchestra sat jaw-dropped in wonder, unable to make a sound). And best of all, as Reporter Paul Moor observed, "in the final rapturous climax of the Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet, he will scowl...
Hanging is an old Anglo-Saxon custom. In the 13th century, punishment by death, in forms varying from the headsman's ax to the witch's pyre, was imposed as a deterrent for virtually every crime on the books. More than five centuries later, there were still some 200 crimes (including poaching) punishable by death in England. Children as young as seven were hanged. The first sweeping move toward clemency was not made until 1835, when these 200 mortal crimes were cut to four -high treason, murder, piracy, and setting fire to the royal dockyards and arsenals...
...casting was the contrast between Altshul's heartiness and the effective combination of foolishness and sinisterness with which Paul Burkhardt played the part of "head jailer and assistant tormentor" Wilfred Shadbold. James Greene as Leonard Meryll and Al Hudson as Sir Richard Cholomondeley were adequate in supporting roles. Headsman James Gale was macabre...