Garrote, a mode of execution practised in Spain and the Spanish colonies. The criminal is seated, and leans his head back against a support prepared for it. An iron collar closely encircles the throat, and the executioner turns a screw, the point of which penetrates the spinal marrow where it unites with the brain, and causes instantaneous death. Formerly the garrote was merely a cord put round the neck and suddenly tightened by the twisting of a stick inserted between the cord and the back of the prisoner's neck. Hence the name of this mode of execution, garrote in Spanish signifying stick. Its origin may probably be traced through the Moors or Arabs to the oriental punishment of the bowstring, which in its primitive style it exactly resembled. Afterward an iron collar was used by which the criminal was suddenly strangled. The piercing of the spinal marrow is a later addition.-The term gar-roting is also applied to a mode of strangulation practised by thieves and highway robbers. An English law of 1861 subjected gar-roters to penal servitude for life, or for any term not less than three years; and in 1863 it was ordered that male garroters should, at the discretion of the judge, be once, twice, or thrice privately whipped.