_Decollatio_, or beheading, was a military punishment among the Romans.
In early times it was performed with an axe, and afterwards with a
sword. It is worthy of remark, that in all countries where beheading and
hanging are used as capital punishments, the former is always considered
less ignominious. Thus, in England, beheading is the punishment of
nobles, when commoners for the same crime are hanged. The crime of high
treason is here punished with beheading. Commoners, however, are hanged
before the head is cut off, and nobles also, unless the king remits that
part of the punishment. In Prussia, formerly a nobleman could not be
hanged; and if his crime was such that the law required this punishment,
he was degraded before the execution. At present, hanging is not used in
that country, and since so many instances have occurred of extreme
suffering, on the part of the criminal, caused by the unskilfulness of
the executioner in beheading with the sword, this mode of execution has
been abolished. Beheading in Prussia is now always performed with a
heavy axe, the sufferer being previously tied to a block. In France,
during the revolutionary government, beheading by means of a machine,
the guillotine, came into use, and still prevails there, to the
exclusion of all other modes of capital punishment. A person who has
murdered his father or mother, however, has his right arm cut off the
moment before he is guillotined. In the middle ages, it was, in some
states, the duty of the youngest magistrates to perform the executions
with the sword. In China, it is well known that beheading is practised,
sometimes accompanied with the most studied torments. In the United
States of America, beheading is unknown, the halter being the only
instrument of capital punishment. In many European countries, beheading
with the sword still prevails.