BRIGANDAGE AND CRIME IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
Brigandage a great scourge in Eastern Europe--The Hungarian
brigand a popular hero--The “poor fellows” and the
“betyars” or brigands on a large scale--Their methods and
appearance--Generous to the poor; fierce and revengeful to the
rich--A countess who danced at a brigands’ ball--The Jews who
were crucified and tortured--Famous brigand chiefs--Sobry--Some
of his extraordinary feats--Mylfait and Pap--The criminal woman
in Austria-Hungary--Remarkable rogues--Weininger--The black
pearl from the British Crown jewels--Capital punishment--The
execution of Hackler in Vienna--His brutal crime.
From time immemorial brigandage has been the principal scourge of the
great tracts of wild country beyond the eastern Alps. The penal code
has always bristled with laws against highway robbery and pillage.
The ancient nobility, entrenched in their fortified castles or
hidden safely within rocky fastnesses, were so many freebooters and
road-agents who issued forth to prey upon their defenceless victims.
They drew around them a strong body of vassals, peasants, herdsmen and
shepherds, and organised them into great bands of brigands, constantly
engaged in extorting ransoms and levying blackmail in the surrounding
districts. The evil example of these lawless chieftains was followed
by the “free” towns, and life and property were everywhere insecure.
Reference to this state of things is to be found in a royal decree
published by Mathias Corvinus in the fifteenth century, reciting that
“the number of criminals has so much increased that no one is safe
either on the public roads or even in his own house.” But the most
stringent laws proved powerless to repress brigandage and general
rapine. Whole villages were devastated by armed bands under powerful
and capable leaders, who carried their depredations far and wide
through the Carpathians. We may quote from the record of a traveller of
the seventeenth century, who, when making a journey from Poland into
Hungary, was forced to seek the protection of an escort of brigands
to defend him from the attacks of other brigands who dominated the
mountain road and the whole country-side. Their chief was one Janko,
who received and entertained the traveller hospitably, and he was
present at a great feast to celebrate a successful attack upon a
caravan of merchants whom they had despoiled. He was entirely at the
mercy of these questionable friends, who proposed to break one of his
legs to prevent him from resuming his journey prematurely. He escaped,
happily, and after thirty-six hours’ wandering reached a village, where
no one could be found to guide him further, lest they should offend the
brigands. The band was presently captured, and the traveller was forced
to witness the tortures inflicted upon Janko, who was flayed alive by
his executioners; his skin was wound round him in long strips, and he
was then hung in the sun on an iron hook, where he lingered for three
days. The other brigands were also flayed and broken on the wheel. It
was about this time that the famous band of cannibal-brigands under
Hara Pacha terrorised Hungary.
The Hungarian brigand was something of a popular hero, esteemed for
his generosity and chivalry. He was ready for any dangerous and daring
deed, inspired rather by a thirst for adventure than by acquisitiveness
or the savage instincts of murder and pillage. Strange stories are
told to their credit. One of them, who had been condemned to death and
was being escorted to the gallows by a pandour, or local policeman,
never forgot that he had been regaled with a good dinner and afterward
allowed to escape. Three months later the pandour fell into the
brigand’s hands, and was treated to a banquet in return and then set
free. On another occasion, a band of a dozen brigands took refuge in
a glass manufactory on the borders of Lake Balaton, where they stood
siege for three hours by a strong party of pandours. Then they made a
temporary truce, invited their assailants to come in and drink, and
after a carouse together, expelled them and renewed the fight, in which
they were worsted and obliged to surrender.
There were various classes of brigands; some of them top-sawyers
who flew at the highest game, others more or less inoffensive and
commonly known as “poor fellows,” the _Szegény Legény_, a name they
had invented for themselves. These last were mostly conscripts who
could not tolerate military discipline and had deserted from the army;
they had not dared to return home, but had taken refuge in forest
or steppe, where they lurked in concealment, issuing forth only to
steal food, seizing a sheep or a lamb from the first flock they might
encounter. The “poor companion” was not exactly a brigand, only a tramp
or vagabond who consorted with shepherds and, keeping up an outwardly
respectable appearance, entered the villages to join in the dances and
festivities. They were most formidable in parts of the country where
they were numerous enough to use menace in demanding hospitality.
They formed themselves into bands of twenty or thirty and broke into
isolated houses, armed with bludgeons, or by using threats induced the
proprietors to pay them blackmail. Once a nobleman met a “poor fellow”
in the open who had escaped from gaol, and threatened to send him back
there if he was caught stealing sheep. “If you will give me one every
year,” said the vagabond, “I will lay my hands upon no more of your
sheep.” It is not uncommon for the “poor companion” to reform, marry
and settle down into an industrious and well-conducted servant. They
have been known to beg for gifts in kind--bacon and bread, for the
support of their fellows in the woods.
The real brigand, known by the name of _betyár_, is, so to speak, born
to the business and takes to it from sheer liking. He is a constant
marauder, a thief on a large scale, prepared to break into great
houses, to invade the castles and residences of noble proprietors and
extort considerable sums. He is described by one author in graphic
terms: “His enormous hat, his black hair falling in long curls upon
his square shoulders; his thick eyebrows, his large ferocious looking
eyes, his face burned by the sun, his massive chest seen through his
tattered shirt, all combine to give him a wild and terrifying look.
He carries a whole arsenal with him--a gun, pistols, a hatchet and
a loaded stick, though he very rarely commits murder. He wages war
also with the gendarmerie. A horse that he covets he is not long in
appropriating. As cunning as an Indian, he gets into the pasture at
night and carries off, without making the slightest noise and with an
incredible dexterity, the horse or the sheep that he is in want of.
Should it be a pig that he has set his eyes on, he entices it to the
edge of the forest by throwing down ears of maize to tempt it, and then
suddenly knocks it on the head with a blow of his club.”
The betyars, armed to the teeth, ranged the country with the utmost
effrontery, daring riders mounted on good horses, accustomed to the
saddle from their earliest youth. They did not hesitate to attack
houses even in the largest villages, ransacking the places and
carrying off horses and spoil of all kinds. In 1861 a party encamped
near a town where great fairs were held, and levied contributions
on all who approached, stopping sixty carts in succession and
appropriating a sum of 15,000 florins in all. Eight of them once
surrounded a house in Transylvania, but were foiled in trying to break
in the door, so attempted the windows, where they were met by the
proprietor who opened fire on them. The brigands began a regular siege,
which ended in a parley. It appeared that hunger was the motive of the
attack, and the assailants withdrew when supplied with food and drink.
A country gentleman was driving home in the dead of night, when his
horses became frightened and were pursued by wolves. Ammunition was
soon expended and escape seemed hopeless when a large party of mounted
men came to the rescue and drove off the ravenous brutes. The grateful
traveller, mistaking them for local police, thanked them warmly for
their timely help. “Man is bound to assist his fellow man,” was the
quiet reply, “but we want something more than thanks. We are not
pandours but gentlemen of the plain in search of horses and any money
we can pick up. You have not recognised us, but we know you and cannot
allow you to run the risk of going home with wolves prowling round. You
must be our guest for a time.” They took him to a neighbouring farm,
gave him supper and a bed and made him write a letter to his wife
saying he was detained by highwaymen who would not part with him until
she had paid over ten thousand florins as his ransom. The money was
duly handed over and the gentleman released. But he was not content to
submit.
Upon reaching home he raised a hue and cry against the betyars, and
they were unceasingly pursued and driven from that part of the country,
to which they did not dare to return for a long time. Fifteen years
later, they swooped down upon the proprietor whom they thought had
betrayed them, and burned his residence and his well-filled granaries
to the ground. In explanation, the following letter reached him:
“We betyars never forget or forgive. We owe our expulsion from this
district to you, and we swore to take our revenge when we were next in
your neighbourhood. That vow was fulfilled last night! Let this be a
lesson to you never again to break a solemn promise given to a betyar.”
The brigands often descended upon their victims with dramatic
suddenness. Their information was always accurate and excellent.
Tucker in his “Life and Society in Eastern Europe,” describes the
startling appearance of a much-dreaded betyar at a historic castle in
Transylvania.
“The noble count was at table with his guests, doing justice to a
sumptuous supper, when the doors were thrown open and gave admission to
a tall, dark, handsome, fiery-eyed man, who advanced with a profound
obeisance and said, ‘I do myself the honour of paying my respects
to your excellencies,’ upon which he approached the countess with
martial step and clanking spurs and raised her trembling fingers to his
lips. No thunderbolt from heaven, no special apparition from beyond
the grave, could have terrified, stupefied, stunned the convivial
assemblage more effectually than the sudden entrance of this stranger.
“His appearance was indeed striking,--in person tall and majestic,
of fierce look, defiant and resolute, despite his fascinating smile.
His brow was exceedingly swarthy, his eyes large and luminous, whilst
his huge jet-black moustache, trimmed in true Magyar fashion, added
even more ferocity to this undaunted robber of the plain. His attire
was picturesque, fantastic, gaudy, unique. In his small, round black
Magyar hat was stuck a long white feather. His tightly fitting vest
was of crimson satin, on which there flashed and glittered two long
rows of large and handsome buttons. The sleeves of his shirt were
extremely wide and open, falling in ample folds and disclosing his
brawny and sinewy arms.... His legs were incased in highly polished
boots reaching to the knees, while a pair of glittering silver spurs
adorned his heels. Encircling his waist in many folds was a crimson
scarf, terminating in broad, loosely hanging ends. Within the folds
were stuck three daggers, the hilts and shields elaborately studded
with costly gems and pearls, and two handsomely mounted horse-pistols
lay half-concealed beside them. A _kulacs_ or flat wooden flask,
gaily painted in floral designs, hung at his side, suspended from his
shoulder by a leather strap. In his left hand he held the _pkosch_,--a
stout stick headed by a small instrument of solid steel, representing
on one side a hatchet and on the other a hammer.”
The count put the best face he could on the matter, asked how many
betyars there were, and gave entertainment for the men and horses, some
forty in all. The supper was relinquished, so that a new meal might
be set before the uninvited guests, and those present were dismissed
with a plain warning that no one was to go in search of aid. The forty
betyars then came in to devour the feast with keen relish, after
their long night’s ride. Healths were drunk in copious drafts, cigars
produced and the chief proceeded to serious business. He reminded his
host that the maize harvest which had just been gathered had been
bountiful, and a substantial sum had been paid in by the Jews for the
purchase of the crops. Forty-seven thousand florins were in the safe,
but this money was pledged to pay off a pressing mortgage and ought not
to be disturbed, the betyar chief generously admitted; but there was
a further sum nearly as large which the robbers declined to forego.
To have seized the mortgage money would have led to the betrayal
of the fact and an active pursuit would have been organised by the
police, feeble though it was, which might have led to an encounter and
blood-shed. But there was no lien upon the rest of the money, so the
robbers might safely take possession of it.
There was no thought of resistance. The betyars might have been
outnumbered but they were well armed, while the residents and servants
in the castle had few, if any, weapons, and a conflict started would
have ended only in butchery, with the burning down of the house and
outbuildings, together with all they contained in corn, cattle and
machinery. It was better to stand the first loss,--no more than many a
Magyar magnate would waste at the gambling table in a single night.
Maurice Jokai, the Hungarian novelist, tells a story, founded on fact,
of an adventure of a great lady with the brigands, in which she came
to no harm through her calm self-possession and courage. She was on
her way to a ball at Arad and, as she was obliged to travel through a
dense forest, she halted over night at an inn which was really a den of
robbers. There happened to be a great gathering of them there dancing.
Undaunted, she entered the ball-room,--a long room, filled with smoke,
where some fifty rough brigands were leaping about and singing at the
top of their voices. They stopped the dance and stared open-mouthed at
the audacious lady who dared to interrupt their revels. They were all
big, fierce looking men, and armed, but the beautiful countess cowed
them and imposed respect. One, the leader of the band, approached,
bowing low, and asked whom she was. He gallantly invited her to dance
the _czarda_ or national step, which she did as gaily and prettily as
on the parquet floor of the casino at Arad.
An ample supper was brought in; pieces of beef were served in a
great cauldron, from which every guest fished out his portion with
a pocket-knife, and ate it with bread soaked in the gravy. Wine was
served in large wooden bottles. After supper cards were produced and
high play for golden ducats followed; then more dancing, and the
countess tripped it with the liveliest until morning. She had danced
eighteen _czardas_ in all with the principal brigand. Her companions
fearfully expected some tragic end to the festivities. When daylight
came, the horses were put to the carriage and the guests were suffered
to depart with compliments and thanks for their condescension.
The betyars were not equally affable to all. They waged perpetual
warfare against Jews and priests, and all who were thought to be
unduly rich and prosperous, whom they constantly captured, robbed and
maltreated, inventing tortures and delighting in their agonies. The
wretched prisoners were beaten unmercifully, were crucified, shod like
horses, tied by the feet to a pendent branch of a tree, or buried up to
their necks by the road-side. A Jew was once taken when on his way to
market with honey. His captors stripped him naked, anointed his whole
body with the honey, rolled him in feathers and drove him in front of
them to the gates of the nearest town, where the dogs worried him and
the people jeered.
Hungary produced many notable brigands, whose names are as celebrated
as the German “Schinderhannes,” or “Fra Diavolo,” or “Jose Maria” in
southern Spain. One of the most famous of these men was Sobry, who
haunted the great forest of Bakony, the chief scene of action for
Hungarian brigands. It was a wild district, its vast solitudes sparsely
occupied by a primitive people cut off from the civilised world. The
men, mostly swine-herds locally called the _kanasz_, were thick set and
of short stature, the women well-formed, with red cheeks and dark eyes.
Pigs roamed the forest in droves of a thousand, their herds consorting
with the vagabonds and refugees who hid in the woods, and were the
spies and sentinels of the brigands, who in return respected the swine.
The _kanasz_, or swine-herds who do business on their own account, are
very expert in the use of their favourite weapon, a small hatchet which
they carry in the waist-belt and prefer to a gun, and with which they
hunt and slay the bear of Transylvania.
The great brigand Sobry was said to be the head of a noble family who
had wasted his patrimony in riotous living and disappeared. By and
by he returned to his ancestral castle with a fortune mysteriously
acquired. Again he ruined himself, and again disappeared, to turn
up later with a large sum of money, which he left to his people.
Sobry’s exploits filled all Hungary. As became an aristocrat he
had most polished manners, and treated his victims with the utmost
consideration. Once he made a descent upon a castle in the absence of
its rich owner, who had left his wife alone. Sobry hastened to the
lady, disclaiming all idea of doing her injury, but begged her to
invite him and his companions to dinner, as the table was reputed to be
the best in Hungary. Twenty-four covers were laid, and Sobry escorted
his hostess to the cellars, where she pointed out the best bins of
Imperial Tokay. At dinner the countess presided, with Sobry at her
right hand. The brigand proposed many toasts to his hostess, kissed her
hand and departed without carrying off even a single spoon.
The following incident is related: A gentleman was driving into town in
a superb carriage, on the box of which sat a police pandour. A beggar
with a venerable white beard came up asking alms, and was invited to
get into the carriage. “I will give you a new suit of clothes from the
best tailors,” said the gentleman. Ready-made clothing was chosen and
put into the carriage, the old beggar being left in pledge for the
goods. The gentleman, who was Sobry, was then driven away, and never
returned.
The affair with the archbishop was on a larger scale. His Grace enjoyed
princely revenues, and kept up great state. His coffers were always
filled to overflowing, and he had immense possessions in flocks and
herds. One day a letter was received from Sobry, announcing an early
visit and the intention to drive off His Grace’s fattest cattle. The
archbishop declined to be intimidated, armed his servants and prepared
to give Sobry a hot reception. The fat cattle were to be sold at once
to the butchers, and a summons was sent forth inviting them to come
and make their bids. One butcher, a well-to-do respectable burgher,
insisted upon transacting his business with the prelate in person, and
after much parley he was introduced into His Grace’s study. Presently
he left the room, telling the servants that he had completed the
bargain, but that the archbishop was somewhat fatigued and was lying
down on the sofa, having given orders that he was not to be disturbed.
So long a time elapsed before His Grace rang his bell that the
servants, risking his displeasure, went to him and found him tied, hand
and foot, and gagged. The story he told, when released from his bonds,
was that his visitor had been Sobry, disguised as a butcher, and that
he had suddenly drawn a pistol and pointed it at the prelate’s breast
exclaiming, “Utter one cry and I fire! I have come to fetch the 60,000
florins you have in the safe, which will suit my purpose better than
your finest cattle.” The archbishop surrendered at discretion and after
this His Grace kept the body-guard in close attendance at the palace,
and never drove out without an escort of pandours.
Two other brigands of a more truculent character than Sobry were
Mylfait and Pap, who never hesitated to commit murder wholesale. On
one occasion, Mylfait had reason to believe that a certain miller had
given information to the pandours, and having surrounded the mill with
his band, he opened fire upon the house, killing every one within,--the
miller, his wife and children, and all of the servants. He showed a
certain grim humour at times. A Jew once lost his way in the forest
and fell in with Mylfait’s band, who were sitting around a fire where
a sheep was being roasted. He was cordially invited to join the feast,
accepted gladly, and made an excellent meal washed down with much wine.
Then he rose abruptly, eager to take himself off. “Without paying for
all you have eaten and drunk?” protested Mylfait. “How much money
have you got about you? Hand it over. Thirty florins? No more!” he
exclaimed. “Here,” to an assistant, “take his gun from him and make him
strip off his clothes. We will keep them until he chooses to redeem
them with a further sum of thirty florins.” The Jew, in despair, begged
and implored for mercy, crying bitterly and shaking in every limb.
“You are feeling the cold, I am afraid,” said the pitiless brigand.
“You shall dance for us; that will warm you and will afford us some
amusement.” The wretched Jew pleaded that he did not know how to dance
the _czarda_. “But you must give us some compensation. Go and stand
with your back against that tree,” Mylfait insisted. “I am going to
see what your gun is worth and whether it shoots true. I shall aim at
your hat. Would you prefer to have your eyes bandaged?” The Jew renewed
his piteous lamentations in the name of his wife and children. But
Mylfait was inflexible, and slowly taking aim, fired, not at the hat,
but a branch above. The ball broke it and it fell upon the Jew’s head,
who, thinking himself killed, staggered and dropped to the ground. “Be
off, you cur;” cried the brigand-chief, “you are not fit to live, but
you may go.”
These notorious characters were usually adored by the female sex.
Every brigand had a devoted mistress, who prided herself on the evil
reputation of her lover, whatever his crimes, even when he had many
murders on his conscience. A strange flirtation and courtship was
carried on for years in one of the principal prisons of Vienna. It was
conducted through a clandestine correspondence; many ardent letters
were exchanged, and the parties were betrothed long before they had
actually seen each other. The letters that passed were models of style
and brimful of affection. One, which had been concealed under a stone
in the exercising yard, and was impounded, ran as follows:
* * * * *
“VERY DEAR FRÄULEIN: I am thunderstruck by the news of your departure.
I wish you every sort of happiness, but I earnestly hope you will write
me saying you still love me, and will wait for my release a month and
a half ahead. Please go to my father’s house in the Rue de la Croix
where you will be well received, for I have assured him that you alone
shall be my wife, and you will find me a man of my word. I may add that
I have the means of supporting you. Write me, I beg, so that my misery
may be somewhat assuaged. Believe me when I swear eternal fidelity.
Your own Charles.
“Do not credit any stories you hear against me--they are all lies and
calumnies. The world is very wicked, let us rise superior to it. I
adore you. Adieu.”
* * * * *
Love affairs do not always prosper in gaol. They may have their origin
in true affection, and are as liable to be impeded as elsewhere by
quarrels, suspicion and jealousy. An amazing case of clever deception
was that of a woman who posed as the Countess Kinski, who when at
large carried on a number of different intrigues at the same time.
She established relations on paper with several lovers,--artists,
tradesmen, and well-to-do burghers, every one of whom she promised to
marry. She gave them all an appointment on the same night at the opera,
where each was to wear a red camellia in his buttonhole; and the stalls
were filled with them. That night the real countess was present in a
box with her parents, and was unable to understand the many adoring
glances directed toward her by her admirers. A clever idea was at the
bottom of this deception. The impostor in her letters pretended that
her parents would certainly oppose her marriage, but that she was
ready to fly to her lover’s arms, if he would help her to bribe the
servants, her own maid, the lackeys and the house porter. The response
was promptly made in the shape of a number of bank-notes, and the false
countess did a flourishing business until the police intervened.
The criminal woman in Austria-Hungary differs widely from the criminal
male offender. The latter enters jail cowed and depressed, and his
temper grows worse and worse until he gives vent to it in furious
assault upon his wardens. The female, on the other hand, begins with
violent hysterics and nerve crises, crying continually, refusing food,
half mad with despair. But she improves day by day, will eat and drink
freely and take an interest in dress and appearance, until at last
she becomes gay and good-humoured. Good looks are frequently met with
in this class. The shop windows are full of photographs of attractive
_demi mondaines_. The story is told of a peasant from the Danube who
was terribly shocked by a photograph of the famous nude group of the
Graces from the statue of Rauch. “Well, well,” he exclaimed, “they are
indeed shameless. They can afford to be photographed and yet they are
too poor to buy clothes.”
Many rogues and sharpers have been found in the Viennese prisons. One
was the famous Weininger, who amassed considerable sums by the sale of
sham antiquities. He disposed of quantities to the best known museums
and collections in Europe. Among other things, he palmed off a quantity
of ancient weapons and armour upon the duke of Modena, all of which
were reproductions made at Vienna. He sold as sixteenth century work
two handsome altars for 3,000 pounds, which he persuaded an English
dealer he had bought in a Jesuit convent in Rome for 5,000 pounds.
Weininger was assisted in his frauds by a Hungarian count who gave the
necessary false certificates of antiquity.
But genuine valuables often came into the market at Vienna. One day a
poor Jew, ragged and travel-stained, offered an authentic black pearl
for sale in a jeweller’s shop. It was beyond question worth a great
sum, and the dealer very properly refused to trade until satisfied
as to the holder’s rightful possession. The story told seemed very
questionable, and the Jew was taken into custody. He claimed that the
pearl had been given to him in payment of a bill owed him by one of
the guests in his boarding-house at Grosswardein. The debtor, he said,
had been at one time a servant of Count Batthyani, who had given it to
him on his death-bed. The pearl was at once recognised as one of the
three black pearls of that size in existence,--one of the English crown
jewels which had long since been stolen. There was nothing to prove how
it had come into Count Batthyani’s possession, but it was generally
supposed that he had acquired it from a dealer, neither of them being
aware of its enormous value. The British government is said to have
paid 2,000 pounds to recover the lost treasure.
Capital punishment is still the rule in Austria-Hungary, as the
penalty for murder in the first degree. At one time noble birth gave
a prescriptive right to death by the sword for both sexes. Hanging
is to-day the plan adhered to for all. The condemned, as in most
countries, is humanely treated in the days immediately preceding
execution. He is carefully watched and guarded against any despairing
attempt at self-destruction, and he is given ample and generally
appetising food. Some curious customs survive. On the third day before
death the executioner brings the convict a capon for supper with a cord
around its neck, and at one time the bird was beheaded before being
served, and its legs and wings were tied with red thread. The ceremony
is still performed in the open air and with much solemnity. As a rule
the journey to the gallows is made in a cart with open sides, and the
condemned, tied and bound, sits with his back to the horses so that he
cannot see the scaffold. Before leaving the jail, the executioner asks
his victim’s pardon, and then, escorted by soldiers to protect him from
the people if he bungles in his horrible task, he takes a different
road to the gallows than that followed by the criminal. When he has
completed his task, he goes through the crowd, hat in hand, collecting
alms to provide masses for the man who has just passed away.
Victor Tissot in his “Viene et la Vie Viennoise” gives a graphic
account of an execution of recent date, which he witnessed at the
Alservorstadt Prison in Vienna. It was conducted within the walls,
but a large concourse had assembled in front of the gates. The place
of execution was the so-called “Court of Corpses,”--a narrow triangle
wedged in by high walls at the end of a short corridor leading from the
condemned cell. The first to appear was the executioner dressed in a
blue over-coat and a crushed hat, followed by his assistants, two of
whom were beardless boys. The gallows, erected above a short flight
of steps at the end of the small court, was minutely examined by the
executioner, after he had selected the most suitable rope from the many
he carried in a small handbag. He was provided also with cords to tie
up the convict’s limbs.
Precisely as the clock struck eight, the cortège appeared, headed by
the convict, by whose side walked the chaplain with the governor and
the president of the High Court behind. The doomed man, Hackler by
name, carried a crucifix in his hand; his face was deathly white, and
great drops of perspiration beaded his forehead and trickled down his
cheeks. He looked around with a stupid and apathetic malevolence at
the officials, and listened with brutal indifference to the judge, as
he formally handed him over to the executioner with these words: “I
surrender to you the person of Raymond Hackler condemned to be hanged;
do your duty.”
The convict betrayed no emotion. He repelled the hangman’s assistance,
who would have helped him to undress, saying: “I’ll do it myself,” and
he proceeded to remove his coat and waistcoat as coolly as though he
were going to bed to sleep the sleep of the just. He then stepped into
the appointed place beneath the gallows with his head bent between his
shoulders. His hands were now fastened behind his back, and a cord
slipped over his head fell down as far as his knees, securing his legs.
The last act was to fix the halter around his neck, which he resisted
spasmodically. The next instant the signal was given and he was run up
into the air. As there was no “drop,” no floor which opened to let the
victim fall through out of sight, and as he wore no cap, his indecorous
contortions and white protruding eyes were plainly visible, while the
hangman completed the horrible operation by adding his weight to break
the vertebral column. His last act was to close the dead man’s eyes.
Hackler’s crime was one of peculiar atrocity. He had murdered his
mother to gain possession of a few florins which he wasted the same
night in ghastly debauchery. The crime was attended with the most
revolting circumstances. When his mother would have driven him forth
to work, he threw a rope around her neck, gagged her, and killed her
with a log of wood. The same night, having thrust the corpse under the
bed, he slept on the mattress “quite as well as usual,” so he told
the examining judge. His death was heartily approved by the people of
Vienna as a just retribution.
Superstition long surrounded execution. The bodies of those who were
executed were left to hang upon the gallows until they fell to pieces.
People came in the night to cut off a shred of the clothes worn, or
sought to mutilate the body by removing a little finger; this relic was
treasured greatly by professional thieves, who foolishly believed that
they would escape detection, or even observation, if they carried it in
their pocket when plying their trade.
Under Austrian law a woman never suffers the death penalty, no matter
what crime has been committed. Women are not regarded as ordinary
criminals, and if convicted, are sent to a convent near Vienna.
The penal codes of Austria proper and Hungary are not identical, but
comparatively few criminals sentenced to death in either country are
actually brought to the scaffold. Statistics show that in Austria
over seven hundred criminals were sentenced to death in the six years
from 1893 to 1898, but less than three per cent. of that number were
actually hanged. The death sentence is in the majority of cases,
commuted to penal servitude for life or for periods ranging from ten to
twenty years, and in the case of both Austria and Hungary a distinct
decrease in the number of capital crimes committed has accompanied the
falling off in the proportion of capital executions.
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Transcriber’s note:
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.