LATER RECORDS.
Latest cases of escape--Charles Thomas White--John Williams--Henry
Williams--Other attempts frustrated--Bell, Brown, and Barry escape
together--Krapps the sailor--The last case on
record--Suicides--Latest executions--Some account of Calcraft and
Marwood--Public executions continue, but much reprehended--The
crowd at the 'Flowery Land' executions--Prices paid for seats--The
same at Müller's--'Times'' account of that execution--Efforts to
make executions private in gaols--Royal commission--Mr. Hibbert's
bill--- The Fenian Barrett's, last public execution at
Newgate--First private one, that of Alexander Mackay--Private
executions not popular with Newgate officials--Some account, by
them, of the demeanour of murderers--Wainwright--Catherine
Wilson--Kate Webster.
The old notion always prevailed that Newgate was impregnable, so to
speak, from within, and that none of its inmates could hope to escape
from its secure precincts. Yet the gaol, in spite of its fortress-like
aspect, was by no means really safe. Year after year prisoners
determined to get free, and occasionally succeeded in their efforts. The
inspectors' reports mention many cases of evasion accomplished. There
were others less successful. Charles Thomas White, awaiting execution
for arson, made a desperate effort to escape from Newgate in 1827. He
had friends and auxiliaries inside the gaol and out. The cell he
occupied was near the outer wall, and had he but been able to remove its
iron bars, he might have descended into Newgate Street by means of a
rope ladder. The ladder was actually made, of black sewing-thread firmly
and closely interwoven. But White could not remove the bars; the
instruments needed for the purpose never reached him. It was noticed
that he was most anxious to receive a pair of shoes for which he had
asked, and when they arrived they were closely examined. Sewn in between
the upper and lower leathers several spring saws were found, which would
have easily cut through any bars. White, when taxed with his attempt,
admitted that the accusation was true, and spoke "with pride and
satisfaction of the practicability of his scheme."
There is an attempt at escape mentioned in Mr. Wakefield's book, which
might have been an intended suicide. John Williams, a young fellow only
twenty-three years of age, awaited execution in 1827 for stealing in a
dwelling-house. On the very morning on which he was to suffer he eluded
the vigilance, such as it was, of his officers, and climbed up the pipe
of a cistern in the corner of the press yard; some thought with the idea
of drowning himself. He never reached the cistern, but fell back into
the yard, injuring his legs severely. Although his execution was
imminent, a surgeon attended to his wounds, and he was carried more
dead than alive to the scaffold. A harrowing scene followed; the wounds
broke open and bled profusely while the last dread penalty was being
performed, to the manifest excitement and indignation of the crowd.
A more daring and skilful escape was effected in 1836 by the
chimney-sweep Henry Williams, who, while detained in the press-yard as a
capital convict, under sentence of death for burglary, managed to get
away in the very same spot where his namesake had nine years before so
miserably failed. Escape seemed absolutely hopeless, and would certainly
have been impossible to any one less nimble than a chimney-sweep,
trained under the old system to ascend the most intricate flues. Even
after Williams had got out, persons were disposed to disbelieve that the
escape had been accomplished in the manner indicated; they preferred to
credit it to carelessness or collusion from officers of the gaol. Yet
from the circumstantial account given by Williams after recapture, there
can be little doubt that he got away as will be described. Williams as a
capital convict was lodged in the press-yard or condemned ward. He had
access to the airing yard, and there was for hours no kind of
supervision. In one corner of the airing yard stood a cistern at some
height from the ground; the wall beneath and above it was "rusticated,"
in other words, the granite surface had become roughened, and offered a
sort of foothold. About fifty feet from the ground level, and above the
cistern, a revolving chevaux-de-frise of iron was fixed, with only a
short interval between it and the wall, supported by a horizontal iron
railing with upright points; in the wall above the chevaux-de-frise
projected a series of iron spikes sharp enough to forbid further ascent.
Williams surveyed these formidable obstacles to evasion, and calmly
proceeded to surmount them. His first task was to gain the top of the
cistern; this he effected by keeping his back to one side of the angle,
and working with his hands behind him, while he used his bare feet like
claws upon the other side of the wall angle. The condition of the stone
surface just mentioned assisted him in this, and he managed to get
beyond the cistern to the railing below the chevaux-de-frise. The least
slip now would have been fatal to him. But he could not thrust his body
in through the narrow space left by the chevaux-de-frise, and was
compelled to work along the railing round three-quarters of the square
of the yard, and at length reached a point opposite the top of the
building containing the condemned wards. This had been a perilous and
painful task; the spikes of the railing penetrated his flesh and made
progression slow and difficult. But the worst part of the business was
to jump from this irksome foothold of the iron grating on to the top of
the building just mentioned, a distance of eight or nine feet. He had
here completed his ascent. His next job was to descend outside Newgate.
Clambering along the roof, he passed to the top of the ordinary's
residence, hoping to find an open sky-light by which he might enter and
so work downstairs. If the worst came to the worst, he intended to have
gone down some chimney, as he had often done before in the way of
business. But he did not like the risk of entering a room by the
fireplace, and the chances of detection it offered.
He traversed vainly all the roofs in Newgate Street, running a great
risk of discovery as he passed by a lot of workmen at Tyler's
manufactory in Warwick Square, which had formerly been the College of
Physicians. As his coat was an incumbrance, he left it on the top of the
third house in Newgate Street, and thus in shirt-sleeves, barefoot and
bareheaded, he worked along to the roofs in Warwick Lane. Here he came
upon a woman on the leads hanging out clothes to dry. Williams concealed
himself behind a chimney till she had re-entered her garret, and then
following her down a step ladder into the house, told his story,
appealed to and won her compassion. She suffered him to pass downstairs.
Below he met another woman and a girl, both of whom were terrified at
his appearance, but when he explained that he was running away from the
gallows they left him the road clear. To walk out into the street was an
easy affair, and he was now free, with one and fourpence in his pocket
and a shirt and trousers for all his clothing. Denied admission
everywhere as a ragged, half-naked beggar, he tramped across London
Bridge to Wandsworth, where he refreshed himself with a pint of strong
ale, the first sustenance he had taken since his escape, and continued
his march to Kingston, where he slept soundly under a hedge till next
morning. Entering a town, he obtained employment at once as a
chimney-sweep from a widow woman, who gave him "bub and grub," or food
and one-and-sixpence, for every nine days' work. Dissatisfied with this
remuneration, he again took to the road, and tramped into Hampshire,
where he presently committed a burglary at Lymington, was caught, and
lodged in Winchester Gaol. Mr. Cope, the governor of Newgate, having
been communicated with, proceeded to Winchester, where he at once
identified Williams.
The success, although very short-lived, which attended him, no doubt
inspired other inmates of Newgate to follow his example. It was for some
time after this a constant practice to go up the chimneys in the hopes
of escaping by the flue. Even then, however, irons across barred the
ascent after a certain distance, and in no one case did a fugitive get
clear away. A man named Lears, under sentence of transportation for an
attempt at murder on board ship, got up part of the way, but had to come
down again covered with soot and filth just as the officers entered the
ward. Lears was rewarded by being obliged to wear cross irons on his
legs, a punishment rarely inflicted in Newgate, and probably one of the
few cases of a recurrence, but under proper safeguards and limitations,
to the old system of chains. On another occasion Mr. Cope the governor
came in and missed a man. The ward was one short of its number. What had
become of the fellow? No one would answer. It was summer-time, and the
grate was empty, but the governor promptly ordered a fire to be lighted.
The effect was nearly instantaneous; the fugitive, uncomfortably
ensconced in the flue, came down of his own accord, like Colonel Colt's
racoon. After this great iron guards, just as are to be seen in lunatic
asylums, were fixed over the fireplaces, and the prisoners had no longer
access to the chimneys.
Among the escapes still remembered was one in 1849, accomplished by a
man who had been employed working at the roof of the chapel on the
female side. He was engaged in whitewashing and cleaning; the officer
who had him in charge left him on the stairs leading to the gallery.
Taking advantage of being unobserved, he got out through the roof on to
the leads, and travelled along them towards No. 1, Newgate Street. This
was a public-house. He stepped in at a garret window, coolly walked
downstairs, and entered the bar. They asked him how he had cut his hand,
which was bleeding, and he said he had done it while working up on the
roof. No further notice was taken of him; no one seemingly suspected
that he was a prisoner, and he was suffered to walk off without let or
hindrance.
In 1853 three men escaped in company from one of the wards in the middle
yard. They were penal servitude men, their names Bell, Brown, and
Barry, and they were awaiting transfer to Leicester, which with
Wakefield was utilized as a receptacle for convicts not going to Western
Australia, or any of the new establishments at home, at Portland,
Dartmoor, or elsewhere. These men managed to cut a hole in the ceiling
of the ward near the iron cage[119] on the landing, and so got access to
the roof. At that time rope mats were still used as beds. One of the
three, shamming ill, remained all day in his ward, where he employed
himself unravelling the rope from the sleeping-mats. By evening he
manufactured a good long length, and after all was quiet the three got
on to the roof through the hole, and so on to Tyler's manufactory close
by, whence they let themselves down into the street by the rope. These
men were all in prison dress at the time of their escape, but one of
their number, Bell, sent back his clothes a few days later by parcel's
delivery, with a civil note to the governor, saying he had no further
use for them. All three fugitives were recaptured, Brown almost at once;
then Barry, who was taken at the East End in a public-house where he had
arranged to meet a pal. The Newgate officers obtained information of
this, and went to the spot, where they effected the capture, but not
till they had had an exciting chase down the street. The third, Bell,
remained longest at large. He too was run into at a lodging in the
Kingsland Road. The officers dropped on to him while he was still in
bed, but as they came upstairs he jumped up and hid in a cupboard. All
three after recapture passed on, as originally intended, to Leicester,
where they did their "bit"[120] and were released; but only to be taken
soon afterwards for a fresh offence, and again pass through Newgate with
sentences of penal servitude.
A later case was still more remarkable, as it was effected after the
alteration of the prison and its reconstruction on the newest lines. A
sailor, Krapps by name, occupied one of the upper cells in the new
block. The doors, through incomplete knowledge of prison needs, were
not, as now, sheeted with iron. The prisoner had nothing to deal with
but wooden panels, and by dint of cutting and chopping he got both the
lower panels out. Through the aperture he crept out on to the landing at
the dead of night, and so down into the central space of the building.
Under superior orders all the doors and gates of this block were left
open at night, to allow the night watchman to pass freely to all parts.
This was considered safer than intrusting him with keys. Krapps walked
at once into the yard and across to the female side, where he found some
of the washing still hanging out to dry. He made a strong rope with
several of the sheets; then, returning to the male yard, got hold of the
step ladder used in lighting the gas, and which under our more careful
supervision would have been, as now-a-days, chained up. Cutting the
cord which fastened the two legs of the step ladder, he opened them out
and made one long length; with this, placed against the wall near the
chevaux-de-frise, he made an escalade. The top of the wall was gained
without difficulty. Along this Krapps crawled, and then dropped down on
to the cook-house. He now put in requisition the rope made of the
sheets, and with its help lowered himself into the street. Down below
were market-carts waiting for daylight, and among them Krapps found a
refuge and friends. The first intimation of his escape was afforded by
the police, who informed the prison authorities next day that a rope was
hanging down from the cook-house roof. Nothing more was heard of Krapps.
The curious thing in his case was that his offence was a trifling one;
he was still untried, but would almost certainly have escaped with a
minor penalty, say of three or four months' imprisonment. There is,
however, no explanation of the motives which prompt prisoners to attempt
escapes. Cases well authenticated have been known of men who had all but
completed their sentences, and for whom the prison gates would open
within a few days, who yet faced extraordinary risks to advance their
enlargement by only a few hours. On the other hand, at the great convict
establishments, such is the moral restraint of a systematic discipline,
that numbers of men, "lifers," and others with ten, fourteen, or twenty
years to do, can be trusted to work out of doors without bolts and bars
at a distance from the prison.
The last escape from Newgate was only three years ago, and occurred just
before the final closing of the prison. No report of it was made public,
as the man was almost immediately recaptured. He was at work under the
supervision of the artisan warder of the prison, who permitted him to go
up on to the roof of the old wards, in order to throw water for flushing
purposes down a shoot. He was out of sight while so employed, and
remained so long absent that the warder, becoming uneasy, went in search
of him. He had disappeared. Encouraged by the shouts and signals of some
workmen employed on a building outside, the prisoner made one of the
most marvellous jumps on record, from the building he was on to a
distant wall, with a drop of sixty feet between. Then he ran along the
coping of the wall towards its angle with Tyler's manufactory, and
dropped down on to the gridiron below. This was not strong enough to
carry him, and he fell through.
Suicides and executions were, however, always the most effectual methods
of making exit from durance. Suicides at Newgate were numerous enough,
but they seldom possessed any novel or unusual features; prison suicides
seldom do, except as regards ingenuity and determination. Only great
resolution indeed, persisted in to the bitter end, would make death a
certainty, so limited and imperfect are the means generally available.
When a bit of rope carefully secreted, braces, shoe-strings, shirt torn
into strips are the only instruments, and a bar or small hook at no
elevation affords the only drop, strangulation would seldom supervene
but for the resolution of the miserable _felo de se_. One curious
instance of a suicide carried out under the most adverse and
extraordinary circumstances may be quoted. It was that of a "Long Firm"
swindler, by name Johnson, who contrived to hang himself from a hammock
hook only eighteen inches from the ground. The noose was one of his
hammock straps, which he buckled round his throat. Having carefully
spread out a blanket on the floor just below the hammock as it lay
suspended, he fastened one end of the strap above mentioned to the hook,
and then fell down. He might have saved himself at any moment by merely
extending an arm; but he lay there patiently till death supervened. When
discovered next morning, quite dead, it was found that the strap
actually did not touch his throat; three fingers might have been
inserted between it and the flesh; the pressure was all on the arteries
behind the ears, and surgical opinion stated that the stoppage of
circulation was the cause of death. Probably dissolution came as easily
and almost without pain.
A laudable desire to invest executions with more and more solemnity and
decorum gained ground as they became more rare. As more humane
principles were introduced into prison management, greater attention was
paid to the capital convicts, and the horrors of their situation while
awaiting sentence were as far as possible mitigated and toned down. But
there was little improvement in the ceremony itself. There were still
untoward accidents occasionally at executions, and even the chief
practitioner of recent times, Calcraft, was not always to be trusted to
do his fell work efficiently.
Having mentioned Calcraft's name, I may be permitted to digress for a
moment to give a few particulars concerning the last officially
appointed hangman of the city of London. After Calcraft's resignation no
successor was really appointed. Marwood, whose name is so familiar with
the present generation, had no official status, and was merely an
operator selected by the Corporation, and who, on the strength of it,
contracted with sheriffs and conveners to work by the job. But Calcraft
regularly succeeded Foxen, who followed Botting, and Dennis, the actor
in the 1780 riots. Calcraft was born at Baddow, in Essex, in 1800; he
was a shoemaker by trade, and settled in London after his marriage in
1825. The story goes, that about 1828 his attention was drawn early one
morning to a man who leant against a lamp-post in Finsbury Square,
coughing violently. Calcraft, who, in spite of the dreadful calling he
subsequently followed, was always reputed a kindly man, invited the man
with the cough to enter a neighbouring house and try a little peppermint
for it. The other accepted, and they got into conversation. He told
Calcraft that he was Foxen the executioner, and that he was that moment
on his way to Newgate to hang a man, but that his cough was getting so
much the master of him that he feared he would not be able to carry on
his duties much longer. "I have no idea who the sheriffs will get to do
the work after me," said Foxen, adding that his assistant, Tom Cheshire,
was given to drink, and not to be trusted. "I think I could do that sort
of job," said Calcraft, on the spur of the moment. Foxen asked him his
name and address, and went away. Calcraft thought no more of what had
occurred till the next sessions at the Old Bailey, when the sheriffs
sent for him, and offered him the post of executioner for the city of
London and Middlesex. He accepted, having at first Tom Cheshire as his
assistant, then for a time, when Cheshire was dismissed for drunkenness,
a man named Osborne. After that he worked alone.
I cannot find that Calcraft was sworn in when appointed, or any exact
information when the old forbidding ceremony ceased to be practised. It
was customary to make the executioner take the Bible in his hand, and
swear solemnly that he would despatch every criminal condemned to die,
without favouring father or mother or any other relation or friend. When
he had taken the oath he was dismissed with the words, "Get thee hence,
wretch!"
Calcraft's emoluments were a guinea per week, and an extra guinea for
every execution. He got besides half-a-crown for every man he flogged,
and an allowance to provide cats or birch rods. For acting as
executioner of Horsemonger Lane Gaol he received a retaining fee of £5
5_s._, with the usual guinea for each job; he was also at liberty to
engage himself in the country, where he demanded and was paid £10 on
each occasion. It was not always easy to get a hangman so cheap, as I
have already indicated on a previous page. The onus and responsibility
of carrying out the sentence is personal to the sheriff. A good story is
told illustrating this. Some wags in Scotland seized Calcraft and kept
him in durance the night before the execution. Meanwhile the convener or
sheriff was in despair, expecting that, failing the executioner, he
would have to do the job himself. But, fortunately for him, just at the
last moment Calcraft was set free.
Calcraft's salary was more than the proverbial "thirteenpence
halfpenny--hangman's wages." The origin of this expression dates, it is
said, from the time when the Scottish mark, a silver coin bearing the
same relation to the Scottish pound that an English shilling does to an
English pound, was made to pass current in England. The mark was valued
at thirteenpence halfpenny, or rather more than the shilling, which from
time immemorial had been the hangman's wages. That very ancient
perquisite the convict's clothes was never claimed by Calcraft, and it
may be doubted whether he was entitled to it. On one particular
occasion, however, he got them. A gentleman whose sins brought him to
the gallows at Maidstone wished to do Calcraft a good turn, and sent to
his London tailor for a complete new suit, in which he appeared at his
execution. He expressly bequeathed them to Calcraft, who was graciously
pleased to accept them. On another occasion an importunate person begged
Calcraft eagerly to claim his right to the clothes, and give them to
him. Calcraft consented, got and bestowed the clothes, only to find that
the person he had obliged exhibited them publicly. It may be added that
of late years the clothes in which a convict has suffered are invariably
burnt. Capital convicts go to the gallows in their own clothing, and not
in prison dress, unless the former is quite unfit to be worn.
Calcraft shared the odium which his office, not strangely, has always
inspired. But he was admitted into the gaol, which his predecessors were
not, and who were paid their wages over the gate to obviate the
necessity for letting them enter. To this curious etiquette was due the
appointment of an official whose office has long since disappeared, "the
yeoman of the halter," whose business it was to provide the rope and do
the pinioning, and who was paid a fee of five shillings. They did not
dislike Calcraft, however, at Newgate. He was an illiterate,
simple-minded man, who scarcely remembered what executions he had
performed. He kept no record of them, and when asked questions, referred
to the officers of the gaol. His nature must have been kindly. When he
came to the prison for his wages his grand-children often accompanied
him, affectionately clinging to his hands; and he owned a pet pony which
would follow him about like a dog. In his own profession he was not
unskilful, but he proceeded entirely by rule of thumb, leaving the
result very much to chance and the strength of the rope. He was so much
in favour of short drops that his immediate successor, Marwood,
stigmatized him as a "short-drop" man; Marwood being, on the other hand,
in favour of giving a man as much rope as possible. With Calcraft's
method there were undoubtedly many failures, and it was a common custom
for him to go below the gallows "just to steady their legs a little;" in
other words, to add his weight to that of the hanging bodies. Marwood
till latterly seemed to have done his work more effectually, and has
been known to give as much as six feet fall. This generally produces
instantaneous death, although cases where complete fracture of the
spinal cord occurred are said to be rare.
Calcraft served the city of London till 1874, when he was pensioned at
the rate of twenty-five shillings per week. The last execution at which
he acted was that of Godwin, on the 25th May, 1874.
Marwood, who succeeded him, and who died while these sheets were in the
press, was a Lincolnshire man, a native of Horncastle, who first took to
the work from predilection, and the idea of being useful in his
generation, as he himself assured the writer of these pages. Until the
time of his death he kept a small shop close to the church in
Horncastle. Over the door, in gilt letters, were the words "Crown
Office"; in the window was a pile of official envelopes, ostentatiously
displayed, while round about were shoe-strings, boot-laces, and lasts.
Marwood, strange to say, followed the same trade as Calcraft. Marwood
was proud of his calling, and when questioned as to whether his process
was satisfactory, replied that he heard "no complaints." The strange
competition amongst hundreds to succeed Marwood is a strange fact too
recently before the public to need mention here. It may, however, be
remarked that the wisdom of appointing any regular hangman is very open
to question, and must be strongly deprecated on moral grounds, as
tending to the utter degradation of one individual. Possibly such
changes may be introduced into the method of execution that the ceremony
may be made more mechanical, thus rendering the personal intervention of
a skilled functionary unnecessary.
Executions long continued to be in public, in spite of remonstrance and
reprobation. The old prejudices, such as that which enlisted Dr. Johnson
on the side of the Tyburn procession, still lingered and prevented any
change. It was thought that capital punishment would lose its deterrent
effect if it ceased to be public, and the _raison d'être_ of the
penalty, which in principle so many opposed, would be gone. This line of
argument prevailed over the manifest horrors of the spectacle. These
increased as time passed. The graphic and terrible account given by
Charles Dickens of the awful scene before Horsemonger Lane Gaol, at the
execution of the Mannings, has already been quoted. Again, the
concourse of people collected in front of Newgate to witness the
execution, simultaneously, of the five pirates, part of the mutinous
crew of the 'Flowery Land,' was greater than on any previous occasion.
It was a callous, careless crowd of coarse-minded, semi-brutalized folk,
who came to enjoy themselves. Few, if any, showed any feeling of terror,
none were impressed with the solemnity, or realized the warning which
the sight conveyed. The upturned faces of the eager spectators resembled
those of the 'gods' at Drury Lane on Boxing Night; the crowd had come to
witness a popular and gratuitous public performance--better than a
prize-fight or a play. No notion that they were assisting at a
vindication of the law filled the minds of those present with dread. On
the contrary, the prevailing sentiment was one of satisfaction at the
success of the spectacle. The remarks heard amongst the crowd were of
coarse approval. "S'help me, ain't it fine?" one costermonger was heard
to exclaim to his companion. "Five of them, all darkies in a row!" The
reply evinced equal satisfaction, and the speaker, with a profane oath,
declared that he would like to act as Jack Ketch to the whole lot.
To the disgrace of the better-educated and better-bred public,
executions could still command the attendance of curious aristocrats
from the West End. At Müller's execution there was great competition for
front seats, and the windows of the opposite houses, which commanded a
good view, as usual fetched high prices. As much as £25 was paid for a
first-floor front on this occasion. Never, indeed, had an execution been
more generally patronized. This is proved by contemporary accounts,
especially one graphic and realistic article which appeared in the
'Times,' and which contributed in no small degree to the introduction of
private executions. A great crowd was expected, and a great crowd came.
They collected over night in the bright light of a November moon. "There
were well-dressed and ill-dressed, old men and lads, women and girls."
Rain fell heavily at intervals, but did not thin the concourse. "Till
three o'clock it was one long revelry of songs and laughter, shouting,
and often quarrelling, though, to do them mere justice, there was at
least till then a half-drunken ribald gaiety among the crowd that made
them all akin." There were preachers among the crowd, but they could not
get a patient hearing. Then one struck up the hymn of the Promised Land,
and the refrain was at once taken up with a mighty chorus--
"Oh, my!
Think I've got to die."
This was presently superseded by a fresh catch--
"Müller, Müller,
He's the man";
till a diversion was created by the appearance of the gallows, which was
received with continuous yells. As day broke the character of the crowd
was betrayed. There were but few women, except of the most degraded
sort; the men were mostly young men--"sharpers, thieves, gamblers,
betting men, the outsiders of the boxing ring, bricklayers' labourers,
dock workmen, German artisans and sugar-bakers, ... with the rakings of
cheap singing-halls and billiard-rooms, the fast young men of London.
But all, whether young or old, men or women, seemed to know nothing,
feel nothing, to have no object but the gallows, and to laugh, curse, or
shout, as in this heaving and struggling forward they gained or lost in
their strong efforts to get nearer where Müller was to die." The actual
execution made some impression. The crowd was for a moment awed and
stilled by the quiet rapid passage from life to death! But before "the
slight slow vibrations of the body had well ended, robbery and violence,
loud laughing, oaths, fighting, obscene conduct, and still more filthy
language reigned round the gallows far and near. Such too the scene
remained with little change or respite till the old hangman (Calcraft)
slunk again along the drop, amid hisses and sneering inquiries of what
he had had to drink that morning. He, after failing once to cut the
rope, made a second attempt more successfully, and the body of Müller
disappeared from view."[121]
It was preposterous to claim for such a scene as this that it conveyed
any great moral lesson, or had any deterring influence. Numbers of
humane and thoughtful persons had long been convinced of this. Already
the urgent necessity for abolishing public executions had been brought
before the House of Commons by Mr. Hibbert, and the question, as part of
the whole subject of capital punishment, had been referred to a royal
commission in January 1864. Full evidence was taken on all points, and
on that regarding public executions there was a great preponderance of
opinion towards their abolition, yet the witnesses were not unanimous.
Some of the judges would have retained the public spectacle; the
ordinary of Newgate was not certain that public executions were not the
best. Another distinguished witness feared that any secrecy in the
treatment of the condemned would invest them with a new and greater
interest, which was much to be deprecated. Foreign witnesses, too, were
in favour of publicity. On the other hand, Lords Cranworth and
Wensleydale recommended private executions; so did Mr. Spencer Walpole,
M.P. Sir George Grey thought there was a growing feeling in favour of
executions within the prison precincts. Colonel (now Sir Edmund)
Henderson was strongly in favour of them, based on his experience of
them in Western Australia. He not only thought them likely to be more
deterrent, but believed that a public ceremony destroyed the whole value
of an execution. Other officials, great lawyers, governors of prisons,
and chaplains supported this view. The only doubts expressed were as to
the sufficiency of the safeguards, as to the certainty of death and its
subsequent publication. But these, it was thought, might be provided by
the admission of the press and the holding of a coroner's inquest.
Duly impressed with the weight of evidence in favour of abolition, the
commission recommended that death sentences should be carried out within
the gaol, "under such regulations as might be considered necessary to
prevent abuse, and satisfy the public that the law had been complied
with." But it is curious to note that there were several dissentients
among the commissioners to this paragraph of the report. The judge of
the Admiralty Court, the Right Hon. Stephen Lushington, the Right Hon.
James Moncrieff, Lord Advocate, Mr. Charles Neate, Mr. William Ewart,
and last, but not least, Mr. John Bright declared that they were not
prepared to agree to the resolution respecting private executions.
Nevertheless, in the very next session a bill was introduced by Mr.
Hibbert, M.P., and accepted by the Government, providing for the future
carrying out of executions within prisons. It was read for the first
time in March 1866, but did not become law till 1868.
The last public execution in front of Newgate was that of the Fenian
Michael Barrett, who was convicted of complicity in the Clerkenwell
explosion, intended to effect the release of Burke and Casey from
Clerkenwell prison, by which many persons lost their lives. Unusual
precautions were taken upon this occasion, as some fresh outrage was
apprehended. There was no interference with the crowd, which collected
as usual, although not to the customary extent. But Newgate and its
neighbourhood was carefully held by the police, both city and
metropolitan. In the houses opposite the prison numbers of detectives
mixed with the spectators; inside the gaol was Colonel Frazer, the chief
commissioner of the city police, and at no great distance, although in
the background, troops were held in readiness to act if required.
Everything passed off quite quietly, however, and Calcraft, who had been
threatened with summary retribution if he executed Barrett, carried out
the sentence without mishap. The sufferer was stolid and reticent to the
last.
The first private execution under the new law took place within the
precincts of Maidstone Gaol. The sufferer was a porter on the London,
Chatham, and Dover railway, sentenced to death for shooting the
station-master at Dover. The ceremony, which was witnessed by only a few
officials and representatives of the press, was performed with the
utmost decency and decorum. The fact that the execution was to take
place within the privacy of the gloomy walls, a fact duly advertised as
completed by the hoisting of the black flag over the gaol, had
undoubtedly a solemn, impressive effect upon those outside. The same was
realized in the first private execution within Newgate, that of
Alexander Mackay, who murdered his mistress at Norton Folgate by beating
her with a rolling-pin and furnace-rake, and who expiated his crime on
the 8th September, 1868. A more marked change from the old scene can
hardly be conceived. Instead of the roar of the brutalized crowd, the
officials spoke in whispers; there was but little moving to and fro.
Almost absolute silence prevailed until the great bell began to toll its
deep note, and broke the stillness with its regular and monotonous
clangour, and the ordinary, in a voice trembling with emotion, read the
burial service aloud. Mackay's fortitude, which had been great, broke
down at the supreme moment before the horror of the stillness, the awful
impressiveness of the scene in which he was the principal actor. No time
was lost in carrying out the dread ceremony; but it was not completed
without some of the officials turning sick, and the moment it was over,
all who could were glad to escape from the last act of the ghastly drama
at which they had assisted.
Private executions at their first introduction were not popular with the
Newgate officials, and for intelligible reasons. The change added
greatly to the responsibilities of the governor and his subordinates.
Hitherto the public had seemed to assist at the ceremony; the moment too
that the condemned man had passed through the debtors' door on to the
scaffold the prison had done with him, and the great outside world
shared in the completion of the sacrifice. This feeling was the stronger
because all the ghastly paraphernalia, the gallows itself and the
process of erecting and removing it, rested with the city architect, and
not with the prison officials. Moreover, after the execution, under the
old system, the latter had only to receive the body for burial after it
had been cut down by the hangman, and placed decently in a shell by the
workmen who removed the gallows. Under the new system the whole of the
arrangements from first to last fell upon the officers. It was they who
formed the chief part of the small select group of spectators; upon them
devolved the painful duty of cutting down the body and preparing for the
inquest. All that the hangman, whoever he may be, does under the new
regime is to unhook the halter and remove the pinioning straps. The
interment in a shell filled with quicklime in the passage-way leading to
the Old Bailey is also a part of the duty of the prison officials. This
strange burial-ground is one of the most ghastly of the remaining
"sights" in Newgate. It was sometimes used as an exercising yard, and
for the greater security of prisoners it is roofed in with iron bars
which gives it, at least overhead, the aspect of a huge cage. Underfoot
and upon the walls roughly cut into the stones, are single initial
letters, the brief epitaphs of those who lie below. As this
burial-ground leads to the adjacent Central Criminal Court, accused
murderers, on going to and returning from trial, literally walked over
what, in case of conviction, would be their own graves.
The older officers, with several of whom I have conversed, have thus had
unusual opportunities of watching the demeanour of murderers both before
trial and after sentence. All as a rule, unless poignant remorse has
brought a desire to court their richly-merited retribution, are buoyed
up with hope to the last. There is always the chance of a flaw in the
indictment, of a missing witness, or extenuating circumstances. Even
when in the condemned cell, with a shameful death within measurable
distance, many cling still to life, expecting much from the intercession
of friends or the humanitarianism of the age. All almost without
exception sleep soundly at night, except the first after sentence, when
the first shock of the verdict and the solemn notification of the
impending blow keeps nearly all awake, or at least disturbs their
night's rest. But the uneasiness soon wears off. The second night sleep
comes readily, and is sound; many of the most abandoned murderers snore
peacefully their eight hours, even on the night immediately preceding
execution. All too have a fairly good appetite, and eat with relish, up
to the last moment. A few go further, and are almost gluttonous.
Giovanni Lanni, the Italian boy who murdered a Frenchwoman in the
Haymarket, and was arrested on board ship just as he was about to leave
the country, had a little spare cash, which he devoted entirely to the
purchase of extra food. He ate constantly and voraciously after
sentence, as though eager to cram as many meals as possible into the few
hours still left him to live. Jeffrey, who murdered his own child, an
infant of six, by hanging him in a cellar in Seven Dials, called for a
roast duck directly he entered the condemned cell. The request was not
granted, as the old custom of allowing capital convicts whatever they
asked for in the way of food has not been the rule in Newgate. The diet
of the condemned is the ordinary diet of the prison, but to which
additions are sometimes made, chiefly of stimulants, if deemed
necessary, by the medical officer of the gaol. The craving for tobacco
which so dominates the habitual smoker often leads the convicted to
plead hard for a last smoke. As a special favour Wainwright was allowed
a cigar the night before execution, which he smoked in the prison yard,
walking up and down with the governor, Mr. Sydney Smith.
Wainwright's demeanour was one of reckless effrontery steadily
maintained to the last. His conversation turned always upon his
influence over the weaker sex, and the extraordinary success he had
achieved. No woman could resist him, he calmly assured Mr. Smith that
night as they walked together, and he recounted his villanies one by
one. His effrontery was only outdone by his cool contempt for the
consolations of religion. The man who had made a pious life a cloak for
his misdeeds, the once exemplary young man and indefatigable Sunday
School teacher, went impenitent to the gallows. The only sign of feeling
he showed was in asking to be allowed to choose the hymns on the Sunday
the condemned sermon was preached in the prison chapel, and this was
probably only that he might hear the singing of a lady with a
magnificent voice who generally attended the prison services. During the
singing of these hymns Wainwright fainted, but
[Illustration: _Execution Shed (1883)_]
whether from real emotion or the desire to make a sensation was never
exactly known. On the fatal morning he came gaily out of his cell,
nodded pleasantly to the governor, who stood just opposite, and then
walked briskly towards the execution shed, smiling as he went along.
There was a smile on his face when it was last seen, and just as the
terrible white cap was drawn over it. Wainwright's execution was within
the gaol, but only nominally private. No less than sixty-seven persons
were present, admitted by special permission of the sheriff. Rumour even
went so far as to assert that among the spectators were several women,
disguised in male habiliments; but the story was never substantiated,
and we may hope that it rested only on the idle gossip of the day.
Many, like Wainwright, were calm and imperturbable throughout their
trying ordeal. Catherine Wilson, the poisoner,[122] was reserved and
reticent to the last, expressing no contrition, but also no fear--a
tall, gaunt, repulsive-looking woman, who no more shrank from cowardly,
secret crimes than from the penalty they entailed. Kate Webster, who was
tried at the Central Criminal Court, and passed through Newgate,
although she suffered at Wandsworth, is remembered at the former prison
as a defiant, brutal creature who showed no remorse, but was subject to
fits of ungovernable passion, when she broke out into language the most
appalling. The man Marley[123] displayed fortitude of a less repulsive
kind. He acknowledged his guilt from the first. When the sheriff offered
him counsel for his defence, he declined, saying he wished to make
none--"the witnesses for the prosecution spoke the truth." During the
trial and after sentence he remained perfectly cool and collected. When
visited one day in the condemned cell, just as St. Sepulchre's clock was
striking, he looked up and said laughingly, "Go along, clock; come
along, gallows." He tripped up the chapel-stairs to hear the condemned
sermon, and came out with cheerful alacrity on the morning he was to
die.
Some condemned convicts converse but little with the warders who have
them unceasingly in charge. Others talk freely enough on various topics,
but principally upon their own cases. When vanity is strongly developed
there is the keen anxiety to hear what is being said about them outside.
One was vexed to think that his victims had a finer funeral than he
would have. The only subject another showed any interest in was the
theatres and the new pieces that were being produced. A third, Christian
Sattler, laughed and jested with the officers about "Jack Ketch," who,
through the postponement of the execution, would lose his Christmas
dinner. When they brought in the two watchers to relieve guard one
night, Sattler said, "Two fresh men! May I speak to them? Yes! I must
caution you," he went on to the warders, "not to go to sleep, or I shall
be off through that little hole," pointing to an aperture for
ventilating the cell. On the morning of execution he asked how far it
was to the gallows, and was told it was quite close. "Then I shall not
wear my coat," he cried; "Jack Ketch shall not have it," being under the
erroneous impression that the convict's clothes were still the
executioner's perquisite.
Often the convicts give way to despair. They are too closely watched to
be allowed to do themselves much mischief, or suicides would probably be
more frequent. But it is neither easy to obtain the instruments of
self-destruction nor to elude the vigilance of their guard. The man,
Bousfield, however, whose execution was so sadly bungled,[124] made a
determined effort to burn himself to death by throwing himself bodily on
to the fire in the condemned ward. He was promptly rescued from his
perilous condition, but not before his face and hands were badly
scorched. They were still much swollen when he was led out to execution.
Miller, the Chelsea murderer, who packed his victim's body in a box, and
tried to send it by parcels delivery, tried to kill himself, but
ineffectively, by running his head against his cell wall. A few other
cases of the kind have occurred, but they have been rare of late years,
whether in Newgate or elsewhere.