THE EXECUTION.
From the moment that Bill Bolter had been removed to the condemned cell,
after his trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of his wife, he
preserved a sullen and moody silence.
Two turnkeys sat up with him constantly, according to the rules of the
prison; but he never made the slightest advances towards entering into
conversation with them. The Chaplain was frequent in his attendance upon
the convict; but no regard was paid to the religious consolations and
exhortations of the reverend gentleman.
The murderer ate his meals heartily, and enjoyed sound physical health:
he was hale and strong, and might, in the common course of nature, have
lived until a good old age.
By day he sate, with folded arms, meditating upon his condition. He
scarcely repented of the numerous evil deeds of which he had been
guilty: but he trembled at the idea of a future state!
One night he had a horrid dream. He thought that the moment had arrived
for his execution, and that he was standing upon the drop. Suddenly the
board gave way beneath his feet--and he fell. An agonising feeling of
the blood rushing with the fury of a torrent and with a heat of molten
lead up into his brain, seized upon him: his eyes shot sparks of fire;
and in his ears there was a loud droning sound, like the moan of the
ocean on a winter's night. This sensation, he fancied, lasted about two
minutes--a short and insignificant space to those who feel not pain, but
an age when passed in the endurance of agony the most intense. Then he
died: and he thought that his spirit left his body with the last
pulsation of the lungs, and was suddenly whirled downwards, with fearful
rapidity, upon the wings of a hurricane. He felt himself in total
darkness; and yet he had an idea that he was plunging precipitately into
a fearful gulf, around the sides of which hideous monsters, immense
serpents, formidable bats, and all kinds of slimy reptiles were
climbing. At length he reached the bottom of the gulf; and then the
faculty of sight was suddenly restored to him. At the same moment he
felt fires encircling him all around; and a horrible snake coiled itself
about him. He was in the midst of a boundless lake of flame; and far as
his eyes could reach, he beheld myriads of spirits all undergoing the
same punishment--writhing in quenchless fire and girt by hideous
serpents. And he thought that neither himself nor those spirits which he
beheld around, wore any shape which he could define; and yet he saw
them plainly--palpably. They had no heads--no limbs; and yet they were
something more than shapeless trunks,--all naked and flesh-coloured, and
unconsumed and indestructible amidst that burning lake, which had no
end. In a few moments this dread scene changed, and all was again dark.
The murderer fancied that he was now groping about in convulsive agonies
upon the bank of a river, the stream of which was tepid and thick like
blood. The bank was slimy and moist, and overgrown with huge osiers and
dark weeds, amidst which loathsome reptiles and enormous alligators were
crowded together. And it was in this frightful place that the murderer
was now spiritually groping his way, in total and coal-black darkness.
At length he slipped down the slimy bank--and his feet touched the
river, which he now knew to be of blood. He grasped convulsively at the
osiers to save himself from falling into that horrible stream: a huge
serpent sprung from the thicket, and coiled itself about his arms and
neck;--and at the same moment an enormous alligator rose from the river
of blood, and seized him in the middle between its tremendous jaws. He
uttered a fearful cry--and awoke.
This dream made a deep impression upon him. He believed that he had
experienced a foretaste of Hell--of that hell, with all its horrors, in
which he would be doomed for ever and ever--without hope, without end.
And yet, by a strange idiosyncrasy of conduct, he did not court the
consolation of the clergyman: he breathed no prayer, gave no outward and
visible sign of repentance: but continued in the same sullen state of
reserve before noticed.
Still, after that dream, he dreaded to seek his bed at night. He was
afraid of sleep; for when he closed his eyes in slumber, visions of
hell, varied in a thousand horrible ways, presented themselves to his
mind.
He never thought of his children: and once when the clergyman asked him
if he would like to see them, he shook his head impatiently.
Death! he shuddered at the idea--and yet he never sought to escape from
its presence by conversation or books. He sate moodily brooding upon
death and what would probably occur hereafter, until he conjured up to
his imagination all the phantasmagorical displays of demons, spectres,
and posthumous horrors ever conceived by human mind.
On another occasion--the Friday before the Monday on which he was
executed--he dreamt of heaven. He thought that the moment the drop had
fallen from beneath his feet, a brilliant light, such as he had never
seen on earth, shone all around him:--the entire atmosphere was
illuminated as with gold-dust in the rays of a powerful sun. And the sun
and moon and stars all appeared of amazing size--immense orbs of
lustrous and shining metal. He fancied that he winged his way upwards
with a slow and steady motion, a genial warmth prevailing all around,
and sweet odours delighting his senses. In this manner he soared on
high--until at length he passed sun, moon, and stars, and beheld them
all shining far, far beneath his feet. Presently the sounds of the most
ravishing sacred music, accompanied by choral voices hymning to the
praise of the Highest, fell upon his ear. His soul was enchanted by
these notes of promise, of hope, and of love; and, raising his eyes, he
beheld the shining palaces of heaven towering above vast and
awe-inspiring piles of clouds. He reached a luminous avenue amidst these
clouds, which led to the gates of paradise. He was about to enter upon
that glorious and radiant path, when a sudden change came over the
entire spirit of his dream; and in a moment he found himself dashing
precipitately downwards, amidst darkness increasing in intensity, but
through which the sun, moon, and planets might be seen, at immense
distances, of a lurid and ominous red. Down--down he continued falling,
until he was pitched with violence upon the moist and slimy bank of that
river of tepid blood, whose margin was crowded with hideous reptiles,
and whose depths swarmed with wide-mouthed alligators.
Thus passed the murderer's time--dread meditations by day, and appalling
dreams by night.
Once he thought of committing suicide, and thus avoiding the ignominy of
the scaffold. He had no shame; but he dreaded hanging on account of the
pain--whereof he had experienced the dread sensations in his dreams.
Besides, death is not quite so terrible when inflicted by one's own
hand, as it is when dealt by another. He was, however, closely watched;
and the only way in which he could have killed himself was by dashing
the back of his head violently against the stone-wall. Then he reflected
that he might not do this effectually;--and so he abandoned the idea of
self-destruction.
On the last Sunday of his life he attended the Chapel. A condemned
sermon was preached according to custom. The sacred fane was filled with
elegantly dressed ladies--the wives, daughters, and friends of the City
authorities. The Clergyman enjoined the prisoner to repentance, and
concluded by assuring him _that it was not even then too late to
acknowledge his errors and save his soul. God would still forgive him_!
If God could thus forgive him,--why could not Man? Oh! wherefore did
that preacher confine his observations to the mercy of the Almighty? why
did he not address a terrible lecture to blood-thirsty and avenging
mortals? Of what use was the death of that sinner? Surely there is no
moral example in a public execution? "There is," says the Legislature.
We will see presently.
Oh! why could not the life of that man--stained with crime and red with
blood though it were--have been spared, and he himself allowed to live
to see the horror of his ways, and learn to admire virtue? He might have
been locked up for the remainder of his existence: bars and bolts in
English gaols are very strong; there was enough air for him to be
allowed to breathe it; and there was enough bread to have spared him a
morsel at the expense of the state!
We cannot give life: we have no right to take it away.
On the Sunday afternoon, the murderer's children were taken to see him
in the condemned cell. He had not asked for them: but the authorities
considered it proper that _they_ should take leave of _him_.
The poor little innocents were dressed in the workhouse garb. The boy
understood that his father was to be hanged on the following morning;
and his grief was heart-rending. The little girl could not understand
why her parent was in that gloomy place, nor what horrible fate awaited
him:--but she had an undefined and vague sense of peril and misfortune;
and she cried also.
The murderer kissed them, and told them to be good children;--but he
only thus conducted himself because he was _ashamed_ to appear so
unfeeling and brutal as he knew himself to be, in the presence of the
Ordinary, the Governor, the Sheriffs, and the ladies who were admitted
to have a glimpse of him in his dungeon.
* * * * *
The morning of the second Monday after the Sessions dawned.
This was the one fixed by the Sheriffs for the execution of William
Bolter, the murderer.
At four o'clock on that fatal morning the huge black stage containing
the drop, was wheeled out of a shed in the Press Yard, and stationed
opposite the debtors' door of Newgate. A carpenter and his assistant
then hastily fitted up the two perpendicular spars, and the one
horizontal beam, which formed the gibbet.
There were already several hundreds of persons collected to witness
these preliminary arrangements; and from that hour until eight o'clock
multitudes continued pouring from every direction towards that spot--the
focus of an all-absorbing interest.
Man--that social, domestic, and intelligent animal--will leave his child
crying in the cradle, his wife tossing upon a bed of pain and sickness,
and his blind old parents to grope their way about in the dark, in order
to be present at an exhibition of a fellow creature's disgrace, agony,
or death. And the law encourages this morbid taste in all countries
termed civilised,--whether it be opposite the debtors' door of Newgate,
or around the guillotine erected at the Barriere Saint Jacques of
Paris,--whether it be in the midst of ranks of soldiers, drawn up to
witness the abominable infliction of the lash in the barracks of Charing
Cross, or the buttons cut off a deserter's coat in the Place
Vendome,--whether it be to see a malefactor broken on the wheel in the
dominions of the tyrant who is called "Europe's Protestant Sovereign,"
or to behold the military execution of a great general at
Madrid,--whether it be to hear an English Judge in the nineteenth
century, unblushingly condemn a man to be hanged, drawn, and quartered,
and his dissected corpse disposed of according to the will of our
Sovereign Lady the Queen; or to witness some miserable peasant expire
beneath the knout in the territories of the Czar.
But the Law is vindictive, cowardly, mean, and ignorant. It is
_vindictive_ because its punishments are more severe than the offences,
and because its officers descend to any dirtiness in order to obtain a
conviction. It is _cowardly_, because it cuts off from the world, with a
rope or an axe, those men whose dispositions it fears to undertake to
curb. It is _mean_, because it is all in favour of the wealthy, and
reserves its thunders for the poor and obscure who have no powerful
interest to protect them; and because itself originates nearly half the
crimes which it punishes. And it is _ignorant_, because it erects the
gibbet where it should rear the cross,--because it makes no allowance
for the cool calculating individual who commits a crime, but takes into
its consideration the case of the passionate man who assassinates his
neighbour in a momentary and uncontrollable burst of rage,--thus
forgetting that the former is the more likely one to be led by
reflection to virtue, and that the latter is a demon subject to impulses
which he can never subdue.
From an early hour a glittering light was seen through the small grated
window above the debtors' door; for the room to which that door belongs,
is now the kitchen.
There was something sinister and ominous in that oscillating glare,
breaking through the mists of the cold December morning, and playing
upon the black spars of the gibbet which stood high above the already
dense but still increasing multitudes.
Towards eight o'clock the crowd had congregated to such an extent, that
it moved and undulated like the stormy ocean. And, oh! what characters
were collected around that gibbet. Every hideous den, every revolting
hole--every abode of vice, squalor, and low debauchery, had vomited
forth their horrible population. Women, with young children in their
arms,--pickpockets of all ages,--swell-mobsmen,--prostitutes, thieves,
and villains of all degrees and descriptions, were gathered there on
that fatal morning.
And amidst that multitude prevailed mirth, and laughter, and gaiety.
Ribald language, obscene jokes, and filthy expressions, were heard
around, even to the very foot of the gallows; and even at that early
hour intoxication was depicted upon the countenances of several whom the
Law had invited thither to derive an example from the tragedy about to
be enacted!
Example, indeed! Listen to those shouts of laughter: they emanate from a
group collected round a pickpocket only twelve years old, who is giving
an account of how he robbed an elderly lady on the preceding evening.
But, ah! what are those moans, accompanied with horrible oaths and
imprecations? Two women fighting: they are tearing each other to
pieces--and their husbands are backing them. In another direction, a
simple-looking countryman suddenly discovers that his handkerchief and
purse are gone. In a moment his hat is knocked over his eyes; and he
himself is cuffed, and kicked, and pushed about in a most brutal manner.
Near the scaffold the following conversation takes place:--
"I wonder what the man who is going to be hanged is doing at this
moment."
"It is now half-past seven. He is about now receiving the sacrament."
"Well--if I was he, I'd send the old parson to the devil, and pitch into
the sheriffs."
"Yes--so would I. For my part, I should like to live such a life as Jack
Sheppard or Dick Turpin did, even if I did get hanged at last."
"There is something noble and exciting in the existence of a highwayman:
and then--at last--what admiration on the part of the crowd--what
applause when he appears upon the drop!"
"Yes. If this fellow Bolter had contented himself with being a burglar,
or had only murdered those who resisted him, I should have cheered him
heartily;--but to kill his wife--there's something cowardly in that; and
so I shall hiss him."
"And so shall I."
"A quarter to eight! The poor devil's minutes are pretty well numbered."
"I wonder what he is about now."
"The pinioning will begin directly, I dare say."
"That must be the worst part."
"Oh! no--not a bit of it. You may depend upon it that he is not half so
miserable as we are inclined to think him. A man makes up his mind to
die as well as to anything else. But what the devil noise is that?"
"Oh! only some fool of a fellow singing a patter song about a man
hanging, and imitating all the convulsions of the poor wretch. My eyes!
how the people do laugh!"
"Five minutes to eight! They won't be long now."
At this moment the bell of Saint Sepulchre's church began to toll the
funeral knell--that same bell whose ominous sound had fallen upon the
ears of the wretched murderer, when he lay concealed in the vault of the
Old House.
The laughing--the joking--the singing--and the fighting now suddenly
subsided; and every eye was turned towards the scaffold. The most
breathless curiosity prevailed.
Suddenly the entrance of the debtor's door was darkened by a human form:
the executioner hastily ascended the steps, and appeared upon the
scaffold.
He was followed by the Ordinary in his black gown, walking with slow and
measured pace along, and reading the funeral service--while the bell of
Saint Sepulchre continued its deep, solemn, and foreboding death-note.
The criminal came next.
His elbows were bound to his sides, and his wrists fastened together,
with thin cord. He had on a decent suit of clothes, supplied by the
generosity of Tom the Cracksman; and on his head was a white night-cap.
The moment he appeared upon the scaffold, a tremendous shout arose from
the thousands and thousands of spectators assembled to witness his
punishment.
He cast a hurried and anxious glance around him.
The large open space opposite the northern wing of Newgate seemed
literally paved with human faces, which were continued down the Old
Bailey and Giltspur Street, as far as he could see. The houses facing
the prison were crammed with life--roof and window.
It seemed as if he were posted upon a rock in the midst of an ocean of
people.
Ten thousand pairs of eyes were concentrated in him. All was animation
and interest, as if some grand national spectacle were about to take
place.
"Hats off!" was the universal cry: the multitudes were determined to
lose nothing! The cheapness of an amusement augments the pleasure
derived from it. We wonder that the government has never attempted to
realise funds by charging a penny a-piece for admission to behold the
executions at Newgate. In such a country as England, where even religion
is made a compulsory matter of taxation, the dues collected at
executions would form a fund calculated to thrive bravely.
While the executioner was occupied in fixing the halter round the
convict's neck, the Ordinary commenced that portion of the Burial
Service, which begins thus:--
"_Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full
of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower: he fleeth as it
were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay._"
The executioner having attached the rope, and drawn the nightcap over
the criminal's face, disappeared from the scaffold, and went beneath the
platform to draw the bolt that sustained the drop.
"_In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succour,
but of thee, O Lord, who_--"
Here the drop fell.
A dreadful convulsion appeared to pass through the murderer's frame; and
for nearly a minute his hands moved nervously up and down. Perhaps
during those fifty seconds, the horrors of his dream were realised, _and
he felt the blood rushing with the fury of a torrent and with a heat of
molten lead up into his brain; perhaps his eyes shot sparks of fire; and
in his ears was a loud droning sound, like the moan of the ocean on a
winter's night!_
But the convulsive movement of the hands soon ceased, and the murderer
hung a lifeless corpse.
The crowd retained its post till nine o'clock, when the body was cut
down: then did that vast assemblage of persons, of both sexes and all
ages, begin to disperse.
The public-houses in the Old Bailey and the immediate neighbourhood
drove a roaring trade throughout that day.