Drop Dead. Lorna Poplak

took place at a jail near where the crime had been committed and where the trial was held, and the hangman had to make his way there. So you could find yourself taking long, boring train journeys to dots on the map like Lytton, British Columbia, or L’Orignal, Ontario, or Battleford, Saskatchewan, or Dorchester, New Brunswick. And you might end up paying for your own rail tickets.

      Carrying your own tools with you — a black hood and leather straps to bind the arms and legs of the prisoner, for example — was essential. You might even have to buy and prepare the rope used for the hanging. New rope is very elastic, and you would need to stretch it out by suspending a heavy weight from it for a few days before the hanging. If you were travelling to those dots on the map — like Lytton or L’Orignal or Battleford or Dorchester — you might have to rely on a hastily and perhaps shoddily built scaffold provided on site, or bring along your own. As noted by Ken Leyton-Brown, this was the preferred solution of one of Canada’s best-known and busiest hangmen, Arthur Ellis. His portable kit was painted an eye-popping shade of red.