Such is the history of the first private execution in England. Anticipated with just horror by those who were compelled to be present, it was carried out with every decency and all decorum, in a manner calculated to give the least pain to those whose duty it was to witness it. The presence of the representatives of the press at a private execution is a guarantee to the public, whose delegates they are, that the sentence of the law which has been passed upon a certain criminal is duly carried out. But there is no occasion to inflict upon them, as was the case at Newgate, the horror of witnessing the pinioning, the procession, and all the awful details of the scaffold. These, thanks to the visiting justices and to the under-sheriff of Kent, Mr. Furley, of Ashford, were spared at Maidstone, and will, it is to be hoped, be spared in future. Meanwhile, so far as this one instance affords means of judging, IS THE EXECUTION UNDER THE NEW LAW MORE IMPRESSIVE THAN UNDER THE OLD? We answer, decidedly, in the affirmative. The applause or censure of the mob, the desire to “die game” before his friends, had, it is acknowledged, the worst influence on the prisoner, and the solemn stillness of the little yard, with its handful of spectators, must have been IMPRESSIVE in the most awful degree, while a peaceful provincial town is left to its usual avocations, entirely free from the influx of pestilent blackguardism, drunkenness, and obscenity which always attended a public hanging.
For the moral purpose of our theme, there are but three items worth noticing in the above account; they are 1st.—The black flag, hoisted as a terror and example to the “bad lot” of “tramps out on hopping excursion, beggars, a female gipsy or two, men and women, the lowest scum of the population, and a dozen eager-eyed, wolfish, cunning-looking boys!” 2nd.—The officials and representatives of the press who “anticipated with just HORROR” the coming scene at which they “were compelled to be present, and then when it is enacted as the primary National Play for the time being, staring at the prisoner in his “railway porter’s uniform of velveteen,” roped to the fatal beam, with a faded flower “in his waistcoat, just above his pinioned hands,” absorbed in prayer—his face of a livid hue, upturned, and his eyes looking upwards; at the same time singing a hymn “in a low, thick, trembling voice,” “after Calcraft has pulled the cap over his face,” and the Chaplain, who had been reading “in a voice broken with emotion, the burial service,” “has shaken hands with him;” and then listening to the “SICKENING RATTLE” in the criminal’s throat, mixed with the whirring sound of the collapsing machinery, as “Smith pulls the bolt,” and “the drop falls,” while “Calcraft is standing behind, and, as it were, guiding the falling figure” into the newly-dug pit below; and 3rd—the summing-up question and answer of the reporter, after making one of a group at this disgusting performance. “Is the execution under the new law more impressive than under the old?” “We answer decidedly in the affirmative. The applause or censure of the mob, the desire to ‘die game’ before his friends, had, it is acknowledged, the worst influence on the prisoner, and the solemn stillness of the little yard, with its handful of spectators, must have been impressive in the most awful degree.”
Impressive upon whom let us here ask? Not upon the “bad lot” contemplating the black flag! The very class who needed some wholesome impression of fear, and who never realised it at public hangings, were shut out and left to indulge their idle fancies and curious promptings—a kind of pleasure to them! If it were impressive upon the “gentlemen of England,” and the representatives of the press, while looking upon a drama so horrible, we should imagine that it was in a sense different from that for which capital punishments were enacted; unless we were to believe that, notwithstanding their high refinement, they were susceptible of murderous emotions.
Then there remains only what the conclusion of the report seems to point at, that it was impressive upon the dying criminal, thus leaving only one poor miserable pretence for sustaining the existence of the gallows as a moral preventative, and a wholesome example. Of what use to society is the transitory impression of an agonised wretch about to die unobserved by the world? None whatever, and therefore the advocates of death punishments must soon give way to those of our opinion, that the gallows is an effete institution, unfit for its purpose; and that solitary confinement and hard labour for life would not only be a greater and more deterring punishment, but a security against prematurely hurrying into eternity, as in days of old, innocent persons, wrongly convicted through some vile perjury of the wicked, mistaken identity, or imperfectly unravelled circumstances.
Amongst the earliest converts, we expect soon to number the reporter of the above quoted narrative, and most of his literary brethren. For promoting the cause of abolition, we have issued this pamphlet, and although we notice the awful adventures of the heroes of the gallows and guillotine in our progress, we have no wish to pander to the taste of the illiterate and depraved, but to point a moral that shall leave a trace of some good impression behind.
As we have placed Askern foremost in our list of modern living British hangmen, the most unknown and least experienced, we shall first give a short biographical notice of his life and professional career.
Except in the performance of their dreadful office, and the associations it brings them into, before and after every execution, there is nothing in their private antecedents and habits above the common run of men of their class. No extraordinary genius has ever been manifested by either of our gallows-heroes, beyond the horrible calling which fate has marked out for them. But under the irresistable spell of an evil destiny, they are compelled by fate to perform deeds which all other men shudder at, although they know their legal necessity; and in their endeavours to become proficient in their strangling art, so as to earn the praise of their official superiors, and the admiration of the multitude, they stand out from the rest of society with more than ordinary prominence, and in that respect are regarded as the chief of remarkable public characters. From the most reliable information current amongst the old friends and associates of Askern about York and adjacent districts, also from officials of the castle, which is now used as a gaol, a career of abject poverty, want of employment, ill-luck in almost every one of his undertakings, and a too-fast life whenever his chequered destiny placed money, in small sums at a time, within his power, led him into temptation, and from that temptation came the commission of a deed which consigned him a prisoner to York Castle, from the sombre scenes of which he never emerged, except as a convict, whom evil fate had long marked for her own! In charity, we throw a veil over his particular offence, as our object is only to here show cause and effect, and warn the yet pure and innocent from evil courses.
It was while a convicted prisoner and when an execution was pending without any hangman to do the “job,” after an unsuccessful application to Calcraft of London, who was then fully engaged, that an offer of pardon was made to him on condition that he performed the office on the doomed man.
Moved by the love of liberty, which like life is said to be sweet to everyone, and promises of remuneration and perquisites, Askern accepted without much hesitation the office of public executioner, and to qualify himself in his new and ominous business, he diligently employed his time (as all others in the same line have done before him) in tying and knotting several lengths of rope after the hangman’s fashion, and testing their tightening effects upon an effigy suspended to a rope stretched across the private room where he lodged. To acquire speed and precision in the tying of a hangman’s “noose,” also in the “turning off and cutting down” without the least blundering and rousing the execrations of the depraved mobs which generally assemble to view such ghastly sights, many trials he had to make upon the suspended figure to fit him for the work of the scaffold.
At length the fatal morning came for his first practical essay on the neck of a human being over the top of the castle wall, and in the presence of a vast hideous-looking concourse of people, who hissed at the culprit when he appeared; and strange inconsistency, also hooted the man who was employed to execute the bidding of justice on the object of their detestation!