Ebook: Reflections on hanging

Preface
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In 1937, during the Civil War in Spain, I spent three
months under sentence of death as a suspected spy, witnessing
the executions of my fellow prisoners and awaiting my own.
These three months left me with a vested interest in capital
punishment—rather like “half-hanged Smith”, who was cut
down after fifteen minutes and lived on. Each time a man’s or
a woman’s neck is broken in this peaceful country, memory
starts to fester like a badly healed wound. I shall never achieve
real peace of mind until hanging is ‘abolished.