The electric chair

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41538/41538-h/41538-h.htm

An important development in electrical generation and transmission is to be found in what is known as the polyphase, multiphase, or rotating current, pioneer patents for which were granted to Tesla May 1, 1888, Nos. 381,968, 381,969, 382,279, 382,280, 382,281 and 382,282.

Realizing the possibilities of the dynamo, the Legislature of New York in 1888 passed a law, which went into effect in 1889, in that State, substituting death by electricity for the hangman’s noose. The criminal is strapped in the chair, seen in Fig. ?, one terminal of the wire from the dynamo is strapped upon his forehead, and the other to anklets on his legs, and like a flash of lightning the deadly energy of the dynamo performs its work.