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.
Transcriber’s Note:
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.