QUOTE : The process of dying, much like the process of being born, is a very intimate affair. The reason people in such situations instinctively have a desire to hide is not just because they feel physically vulnerable. Dying in the sight of others, as in a public execution, is a double punishment as it is an affront to the victim's modesty in the most brutal way conceivable. It was one of the reasons public executions were considered to have a more criminally preventative effect on the population than execution in the solitude of the cell. Some allowances were made, however, such as obliging the executioner to wear a mask. That wasn't, as many think, to conceal the executioner's identity. The mask was out of consideration for the condemned man, so that he didn't feel a stranger was close to him at the moment of death.