Before the days of the electric chair and lethal injection, New York lawmakers thought long and hard about how best to do away with doomed prisoners.

In 1887, after a handful of hanging mishaps, they funneled their efforts in to a report titled The Commission to Investigate and Report the Most Humane and Practical Method of Carrying into Effect the Sentence of Death in Capital Cases.

The document colloquially became known as the Gerry Report or Commission after one of its authors, Elbridge Gerry.

It listed 34 different methods of execution used around the world and compared them painstakingly.

In 1887, a group of lawmakers were tasked with studying alternative methods of execution after a spate of unsuccessful hangings. They considered beheading and looked to France for inspiration. An illustration of King Louis XVI's 1793 execution is shown above

THE GERRY REPORT'S 34 METHODS OF EXECUTION Auto da fe Beheading Flaying Blowing from a cannon Boiling Burning Burying alive Breaking on the wheel Crucifixion Decimation Cutting in half Dismemberment Drowning Wild beasts Beating with clubs Flogging Hanging Impalement Iron Maiden Poisoning Rack Shooting Stabbing Strangling Stoning Suffocation Pressing to death Crushing Guillotine Strangle with a chord Harikari (enforced suicide by sword) Throwing from a cliff Running the gauntlet Pounding in a mortar Advertisement

Stabbing, stoning, drowning, boiling, dismembering and even shooting prisoners out of a cannon were all considered.

The report was seen by Popular Mechanics and published in part on Sunday.

It was written by Gerry along with Matthew Hale and Alfred Southwick in response to a spate of disastrous hangings which prompted the public to deem it an uncivilized way to execute prisoners.

Men had been accidentally decapitated or left to slowly choke as a result of poor planning, shoddy ropes and ill-calculated rope length.

The report's authors turned to other nations for inspiration.

They compared how beheadings were carried out in Japan, England and France and even looked back to the Middle Ages for other ideas.

Iron Maidens were among the techniques they studied. The metal sarcophagi were used in Medieval times to kill victims with nails or spikes on in the inside of the door which impaled them once closed.

Poisoning, pressing to death, impalement, cutting a person in half and taking all of their limbs apart one by one were also looked at but ruled out.

The report was in response to a spate of unsuccessful hangings in New York which the public deemed inhumane. Hanging continued to be used as an execution method for decades in other states and is still legal in New Hampshire and Washington

The Guillotine was included in the list as was the Iron Maiden, a medieval death device which resembled a sarcophagus but had spikes on the interior of its door to impale the victim once closed

The electric chair was the suggested solution. The first inmate to be subjected to it was William Kremmler in 1890. Above, an 1888 illustration of how it might work

Elbridge Gerry (left) and Alfred Southwick (right) wrote the report which became known as the Gerry Commission

Eventually, the authors concluded that despite the set-backs, hanging was still the most humane form of ending another's life.

In 1890, the first electrocution took place. William Kemmler, a murderer who killed his girlfriend with an axe, was the first death row prisoner to be subjected to it.

He was executed at Auburn Prison in New York.

Southwick, one of the report's authors who was a dentist, suggested electrocution as a humane form of execution years earlier after watching a drunk accidentally kill himself when he touched an electricity generator in Buffalo.

Old Spark was the name given to the model of chair used to conduct hundreds of executions across America in the mid 20th Century

The chair was used as the primary form of capital punishment in most states for decades until it too attracted controversy.

It can still be used in rare circumstances in eight states if chosen by the inmate or if the lethal injection, the preferred method, is not available.

Prison gas chambers also became popular in the early 1920s until they too became outlawed in many states as inhumane.

It is still used in four states if the prisoner chooses it over the lethal injection and if they were sentenced before the lethal injection became the primary method in that state. They are Arizona, California, Missouri and Wyoming.

Death by firing squad is still legal in Utah and hangings can still take place in New Hampshire and Washington.