Yes, but that didn't seem always to be the case when the British were hanging people overseas. George Orwell wrote an essay, A Hanging [1], about an execution t

Yes, but that didn't seem always to be the case when the British were hanging people overseas. George Orwell wrote an essay, A Hanging [1], about an execution that he witnessed while serving in Burma. The prisoner, and escort, have a walk of several minutes from the cell to the gallows outdoors. At one point, with 40 yards to go to the gallows, the party is disrupted by a large playful dog. He notes that after the disturbance, the prisoner steps to one side to avoid a puddle on the ground. Orwell writes: "It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working — bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming — all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned — reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone — one mind less, one world less. It's powerful stuff, whatever your thoughts on capital punishment. [1] https://orwell.ru/library/articles/hanging/english/e_hanging https://orwell.ru/library/articles/hanging/english/e_hanging