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a motive with compassionate persons to employ it for animals 
sacrificed for their use, they may conduct the process thus: 
‘‘Having prepared a battery of six large glass jars (each from 
twenty to twenty-four pints) as for the Leyden experiment, and 
having established a communication as usual from the interior sur- 
face of each with the prime conductor ; and having given them a 
a full charge (which, with a good machine, may be executed in a 
few minutes, and may be estimated by an electrometer), a chain 
which communicates with the exterior of the jars must be wrapped 
round the thighs of the fowl; after which the operator, holding it 
by the wings turned back and made to touch behind, must raise it 
so high that the head may receive the first shock from the prime 
conductor. ‘The animal dies instantly. Let the head be immedi- 
ately cut off to make it bleed, when it may be plucked and dressed 
immediately. This quantity of electricity is supposed sufficient for 
a turkey of ten pounds weight, and perhaps for a lamb. Experi- 
ence alone will inform us of the requisite proportions for animals of 
different forms and ages. Probably not less will be required to ren- 
der a small bird which is very old tender than for a larger one which 
is young. It is easy to furnish the requisite quantity of electricity by 
employing a greater or less number of jars. As six jars, however, 
discharged at once are capable of giving a very violent shock, the 
operator must be very circumspect lest he should happen to make 
the experiment on his own flesh instead of that of the fowl.” 
Franklin’s experiments upon the effect of the electric discharge 
upon the human subject he thus describes in a letter to a friend in 
Charleston, S. C., written in 1755: * ‘* The knocking down of the 
six men was performed with two of my large jars not fully charged. 
I laid one end of my discharging rod upon the head of the first ; 
he laid his hand on the head of the second ; the second his hand 
on the head of the third ; and so to the last, who held in his hand 
the chain that was connected with the outside of the jars. When 
they were thus placed, I applied the other end of my rod to the 
prime conductor and they all dropt together. When they got up 
they all declared they had not felt any stroke, and wondered how they 
came to fall; nor did any of them either hear the crack or see the 
light of it. You suppose it isa dangerous experiment; but I had 
once suffered the same myself, receiving by accident an equal stroke 
* Letters and Papers on Philosophical Subjects. New Experiments and Observations on 
Electricity, p. 324. 
