Thick, cement walls,
floor, and ceiling, make each cell separate and distinct from the
others. Heavy doors of barred steel open outward onto the different
platforms, which run all the way around the inside of the cage. Armed
patrolmen, known as death guards, are kept constantly walking around
these platforms. Within this cage is John Convert and many other
notorious murderers, waiting their turns to be put to death as
punishment for their heinous crimes.
"At the south end of the Death Chamber is a solid iron door, which leads
into an adjoining little red brick building, about fifty by twenty feet
in dimension, one story high, and containing two rooms. These rooms are
perfectly bare, excepting that in one of them there is a chair, and in
the other a table. About ten feet from the door leading from the Death
Chamber is the electric chair, by which the State kills its worst
criminals. In appearance it is similar to a plain, old-fashioned garden
arm-chair, with a high back. Connected to this chair are several straps,
by which the condemned man is harnessed in a sitting position, so that
he cannot move. These straps are adjusted across the head, chest,
abdomen, both fore and upper arms and the ankles. They are not bound too
tightly, but left taut in order to allow for the expansion of the body.
The electro connections are at the head and the inside of the right
calf, the trousers being cut from the knee downward, so that a contact
can be made with the bare flesh.
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