Hanging by the ribs

In 1713, Juraj Jánošík, a semi-legendary Slovak outlaw and folk hero, was sentenced to be hanged from his left rib. He was left to slowly die.

The German physician Gottlob Schober (1670–1739), who worked in Russia from 1712, notes that a person could hang from the ribs for about three days prior to expiring, his primary pain being that of extreme thirst. He thought this degree of insensitivity was something peculiar to the Russian mentality.

The Dutch in Suriname were also in the habit of hanging a slave from the ribs, a custom amongst the African tribes from whom they were originally purchased. John Gabriel Stedman stayed in South America from 1772 to 1777 and described the method as told by a witness:

Not long ago, (continued he) I saw a black "man suspended alive from a gallows by the ribs, between which, with a knife, was first made an incision, and then clinched an iron hook with a chain: in this manner he kept alive three days, hanging with his head "and feet downwards, and catching with his tongue the "drops of water" (it being in the rainy season) that were "flowing down his bloated breast.

 Notwithstanding all this, he never complained, and even upbraided a negro "for crying while he was flogged below the gallows, by calling out to him: "You man?—Da boy fasy? Are you a man? you behave like a boy". Shortly after which he was knocked on the head by the commiserating sentry, who stood over him, with the butt end of his musket.

William Blake was specially commissioned to make illustrations to Stedman's narrative.