An 1837 executioner publicly struck a corpse and jeered at the crowd.

Evidence

The Gazette tribunaux, 6 July 1837, reports, from a Gloucester newspaper, the ‘atrocious and disgusting’ conduct of an executioner who after hanging a condemned man ‘took the corpse by the shoulders, violently turned it round and struck it several times saying: “Are you dead enough now?” then, turning towards the crowd, laughing and jeering, he made several indecent remarks’. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 477

Categorization

• CANDY: The ‘are you dead enough now?’ executioner quip is a vivid, morbidly funny anecdote.