My Experiences as an Executioner

rderer's po

are fond of repea

power the g

sels as it

nd well for any class of people it is absolutely necessary that we should be able to see things from their own point of view. It is with much hesitation that I start this chapter, for I know that my power to analyze thought and c

deserve it or not; many others condemn them body, soul and spirit, without considering to what extent they are the result of circumstances. If I can induce my

ded by an atmosphere of gay and hollow vice, cradled in misery and educated in wretchedness and sin, with little of the good and the beautiful entering into their lives to raise them, but with the accursed facility for obtaining drink to lure them down-in such deplorable circumstances, I say, that even an angel could hardly keep himself unsp

I think we might ask ourselves whether it would not have been better for some of the murderers, as well as for

ill naturally occur to the thoughtful

ur S

ording to the doctors, by strangulation. Shaw did not deny the murder, but pleaded that it was unintentional, and that he had been greatly provoked by his wife's long-continued dissipation. The jury strongly recommended him to mercy. Immediately before meeting his fate, in a last conversation with the chaplain, the man admitted his guilt but earnestly insisted that he had never intend

as P

following paragraph:-"I wish to assure the public and my family and friends that I was of unsound mind for a week previous to the murder and for some time afterwards. I am happy to suffe

ge H

86. It is difficult, or impossible, for an ordinary person to understand such a man's frame of mind. One would think him absolutely callous, yet he wept over the body of his child

nd you must tell the others the same, you that is your brothers and sisters God has promised to be a father to you all ways, remember that he sees all you do and all you think, then if you do his will while here on earth he will receive you to his throne in glory where all is peace and rest. So my Dear Children you will be able to meat all your brothers and sisters and your poore dea

d Pri

d Pri

large factory, and stole from him the wages money, amounting to over ￡200. The evidence of the deed was absolutely conclusive and overwhelming, and Pritchard had no hope of reprieve. A day or two after his conviction he wrote a letter to one of his Sunday-school teachers, in which he professed to have seen the error of his ways, urged all his companions to shun bad company, drinking and smoking, spoke of the delight with which he remembered some of the Sunday-school hymns, and anticipated the pleasure of soon singing them "up there." All through his life there seems to have been a struggle between good and evil, with an unfortunate balance of power on the side of evil. It is difficult to believe that he would have devoted his spare time for a year to religious work if h

esty's

, Feb.

i

nd it was by no other person than -- --, who was a witness against me. He persuaded me to do it, and said he might do it himself if I did not; so I done the unhappy affair. I am very sorry I ever met with -- at all, but it cannot be called back now. I have cried to God for mercy; I must still cry, and I hope I shall gain a better home

is nothing that can save me from my doom, which will be on

arly mad about it the first few nights, and could not sleep; but now I find comfort in Jesus.

ward Pr

ter Cou

ester

rd's last moments are given

d Sca

d Sca

ad not been forced by grinding poverty to work almost day and night at her mangling and paper-hawking she might have succeeded in saving him from himself. He tried to break away from his evil associations, and at one time begged his mother to find money to take him to Canada, but she was utterly unable to scrape together enough to pay the passage. A youth called Jones, who was hanged with Scandrett, was his companion in his final crime-a burglary, ending in murder. Although attached to his mother, who said he had always been "a good lad" to her, Scandrett could not bear the idea of living at home when he was engaged in crime, so that almost the whole of the last eight years of his life was spent, when out of gaol, in common lodging-houses. After his conviction for murder and sentence to death, his great anxiety was for his mother. And well might he be anxious, for the poor woman suffered sadly for his sin. As soon as it was known t

r Del

d worse by hard drinking. His victim was his wife, to whom he had been married four years, and who was spoken of as a respectable, hard-working woman. Not very long after the marriage, in a drunken fit, he violently assaulted her, for which action the magistrates imposed a fine and granted a separation order. His wife, however, forgave him, and in spite of his bad behaviour continued to live with him. A few days before the murder he was unusually violent, and treated his wife so brutally that she was

rison,

t 8th

ar Fr

fe would been alive now, and we should have been happy, for she was a faithful and good wife to me. God knows that I should not have done such a dreadful crime if I had kept my pledge, but hope it will be a warning to those that play with the devil in solution. Will you tell -- to give his heart to god, and he will be safe from hi

unfortun

r T.

y difficult to say, but time after time we find that murderers who write

beth

e or two instances of parents who murdered their own children for the sake of a few pounds of insurance money, and such instances could be multiplied. In fact, so apparent did the motive become a year or two back, that the Government was obliged to pass a law regulating the insurance of the lives of infants. If such an act, or even a further-reaching one, had been in existence earlier, Elizabeth Berry might have been alive now instead of lying in a felon's grave. Mrs. Berry poisoned her daughter, aged 11. At the time of the murder the child's life was insured for ￡10, for which Mrs. Berry was paying a premium of 1d. per week. The murderess had also made a proposal for a mutual insurance on her own life and the child's

. B