Word: roped
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Something has happened, said Dr. Namias, to the "planetary air current" the great, sinuous river of high-altitude wind that sweeps around the earth in temperate latitudes. It flows in waves like a shaken rope, and the position and size of the waves is a controlling factor in Northern Hemisphere weather...
...banished from political life, grateful Tomio Muto became an active Christian for the first time. He helped famed Christian Leader Toyohiko Kagawa start a magazine called Christian News (present circulation: 30.000). But when his old boss Tojo was hanged by the Allies in 1948, says Muto, "I felt the rope. Now I knew I must work for Christ. I definitely decided to become a minister...
...good stage presence, must feel at home with any class of people, and should be "capable of being the guide, philosopher and friend of whomsoever he must hang for us." In particular, Duff sings the praises of 19th century Hangman James Berry, who calculated precisely the length of rope needed to break the prisoner's neck with pulling the head off. Berry expressed this in a brilliant and still widely used equation which, at least in Author Duff's version runs thus...
...hanging. But all he may accomplish is that reformers will propose some more efficient or humanitarian substitutes for the gallows-such as the neat old guillotine, the quick bullet in the back of the neck, or the concentration camp, where prisoners may die unhurriedly and without benefit of rope...
Nevertheless, the New Handbook makes gripping reading and is full of sleep-troubling facts about hangmanship, from an account of distinguished executioners who committed suicide to the sort of wood it is best to use for gallows (teak) to the best rope for hanging a man (¾-in. rope of five strands of Italian hemp...