grapevine

Guillotine

The Guillotine

is a device designed for carrying out executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame in which a weighted and angled blade is raised to the top and suspended. The condemned person is secured at the bottom of the frame, with his or her neck held directly below the blade. The blade is then released, to fall swiftly and sever the head from the body. The device is best known for its use in France, in particular during the French Revolution, when it ‘became a part of popular culture’.

The blade was an axe head weighing 3.5 kg, attached to the bottom of a massive wooden block that slid up and down via grooves in the uprights. This device was mounted on a large square platform 1.25 metre (4 ft) high.

In France, before the  guillotine, members of the nobility were beheaded with a sword or axe, which typically took at least two blows to kill the condemned, while commoners were usually hanged, a form of death that could take minutes or longer. 

Since these traditional executions were notably gruesome, a French physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin conceived and designed the           killer machine in an attempt to improve on accuracy and effectiveness. What followed were large-scale executions by guillotine. Hundreds could be killed in a day   in what was termed as the ‘reign of Terror’.                                                 

Nobility and commoners, intellectuals, politicians and prostitutes, were liable to be executed on little or no grounds. Suspicion of crimes was enough to earn one an appointment with "Madame Guillotine" or "The National Razor".

Even the inventor, Joseph Guillotin himself, got a taste of his own medicine when he was sentenced to death by guillotine.

His crime? - Guilty of inventing a killer machine that was too efficient.

For a time, executions by guillotine were a popular entertainment that attracted great crowds of spectators. Vendors would sell programs listing the names of those scheduled to die. Many people would come day after day and vie for the best locations from which to observe the drama.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler had a guillotine constructed and tested. He was impressed enough to order 20 more constructed and put into immediate service. National Socialist records indicate that between 1933 and 1945, 16,500 people were executed by guillotine in Germany and Austria.

MORRIS NGUGI

 What you do today means a lot for your tomorrow.

The guillotine history has lessons for us.
Our actions in the present are like seeds planted for future harvest.
Do good today as an investment for a better tomorrow.Do bad things today and your actions will follow you into your future.What you plant is what you harvest.The negative energy and passion that inspired
Mr Guillotin in the invention of a killer machine was evil. Human life is Divine and sacred. You can’t dispense with it at the whim of the moment.
Guillotin signed his death warrant the moment he invented the killer machine.
Those who live by the sword die by the sword!