“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.”