What is wrong with people?

Elsewhere

I'm not at all surprised. It's only about 150 years since public hangings were abolished in Britain. What is considered morally correct might change, but human nature - enjoying a gory spectacle - doesn't .

"Up to the end of the 18th century, executions were very much a spectator sport for all classes of society, the wealthy as well as the poor. Seats in Mother Procter’s Pews, open galleries like modern grandstands at a football stadium, which gave a good view of the proceedings at London’s Tyburn were much sought after and very expensive."

http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/endpublic.html