MikhailT/lj-speech huggingface dataset:
After the construction and action of the machine had been explained, the doctor asked the governor what kind of men he had commanded at Goree,
where the murder for which he was condemned had been committed.
"Sir," he answered, "they sent me the very riff-raff."
The poor soul then joined the doctor in prayer, and never did I witness more contrition at any condemned sermon than he then evinced.
The sheriff arrived, attended by his officers, to receive the prisoner from the keeper.
A new hat was partly flattened on his head, for, owing to its being too small in the crown, it stood many inches too high behind.
As we were crossing the press yard,
the dreadful execrations of some of the felons so shook his frame that he observed "the clock had struck;" and quickening his pace,
he soon arrived at the room where the sheriff was to give a receipt for his body, according to the usual custom.
Before the colonel had been pinioned he had pulled out two white handkerchiefs, one of which he bound over his temples so as nearly to conceal his eyes,
the other he kept between his hands.
Over the handkerchief around his brows he placed a white cap, the new hat being on top of all.
He was dressed in a mixed-colored loose coat with a black collar, swandown waistcoat, blue pantaloons, and white silk stockings.
Thus appareled he ascended the stairs at the debtors' door,
and stepped out on to the platform, to be received, as has been said, by prolonged yells.
These evidently deprived him of the small portion of fortitude he had summoned up.
He bowed his head under extreme pressure of ignominy,
and at his request the ordinary drew the cap further down over his face, when in an instant,
without waiting for any signal, the platform dropped, and he was launched into eternity.
Whenever the public attention had been specially called to a particular crime, either on account of its atrocity,
the doubtfulness of the issue, or the superior position of the perpetrator,
the attendance at the execution was certain to be tumultuous, and the conduct of the mob disorderly.
This was notably the case at the execution of Holloway and Haggerty
in 1807, an event long remembered from the fatal and disastrous consequences which followed it.
They were accused by a confederate, who, goaded by conscience, had turned approver, of the murder of a Mr. Steele,
who kept a lavender warehouse in the city, and who had gardens at Feltham,
whither he often went to distill the lavender, returning to London the same evening.
One night he was missing
and after a long interval his dead body was discovered, shockingly disfigured, in a ditch. This was in 1802.
Four years passed without the detection of the murderers,
but in the beginning of 1807 one of them, at that time just sentenced to transportation,
made a full confession, and implicated Holloway and Haggerty.
They were accordingly apprehended and brought to trial, the informer, Hanfield by name, being accepted as king's evidence.
Conviction followed mainly on his testimony; but the two men, especially Holloway, stoutly maintained their innocence to the last.
Very great excitement prevailed in the town throughout the trial, and this greatly increased when the verdict was known.
An enormous crowd assembled to witness the execution, amounting, it was said, to the hitherto unparalleled number of 40,000.
By eight o'clock not an inch of ground in front of the platform was unoccupied.
The pressure soon became so frightful that many would have willingly escaped from the crowd; but their attempts only increased the general confusion.
Very soon women began to scream with terror;
some, especially of low stature, found it difficult to remain standing, and several, although held up for some time by the men nearest them,
presently fell, and were at once trampled to death.
Cries of Murder! murder! were now raised, and added greatly to the horrors of the scene.
Panic became general. More women, children, and many men were borne down, to perish beneath the feet of the rest.
The most affecting and distressing scene was at Green Arbor Lane, just opposite the debtors' door of the prison.
Here a couple of piemen had been selling their wares; the basket of one of them, which was raised upon a four-legged stool, was upset.
The pieman stooped down to pick up his scattered stock, and some of the mob, not seeing what had happened, stumbled over him.
No one who fell ever rose again.
Among the rest was a woman with an infant at the breast.
She was killed, but in the act of falling she forced her child into the arms of a man near her, and implored him in God's name to save it;
the man, needing all his care for his own life, threw the child from him,
and it passed along the heads of the crowd, to be caught at last by a person who struggled with it to a cart and deposited it there in safety.
In another part seven persons met their death by suffocation.
In this convulsive struggle for bare existence people fought fiercely with one another, and the weakest, of course the women, went under.
One cart-load of spectators having broken down, some of its occupants fell off the vehicle, and were instantly trampled to death.
This went on for more than an hour, and until the malefactors were cut down and the gallows removed;
then the mob began to thin, and the streets were cleared by the city marshals and a number of constables.
The catastrophe exceeded the worst anticipations. Nearly one hundred dead and dying lay about; and after all had been removed,
the bodies for identification, the wounded to hospitals, a cart-load of shoes, hats, petticoats, and fragments of wearing apparel were picked up.
Among the dead was a sailor lad whom no one knew;
he had his pockets filled with bread and cheese, and it was generally supposed that he had come a long distance to see the fatal show.
A tremendous crowd assembled when Bellingham was executed in 1812 for the murder of Spencer Percival, at that time prime minister;
but there were no serious accidents, beyond those caused by the goring of a maddened, over-driven ox which forced its way through the crowd.
Precautions had been taken by the erection of barriers, and the posting of placards at all the avenues to the Old Bailey, on which was printed,
Beware of entering the crowd! Remember thirty poor persons were pressed to death by the crowd when Haggerty and Holloway were executed!
The concourse was very great, notwithstanding these warnings.
It was still greater at Fauntleroy's execution in 1824, when no less than 100,000 persons assembled, it was said.
Every window and roof which could command a view of the horrible performance was occupied.
All the avenues and approaches, places even whence nothing whatever could be seen of the scaffold,
were blocked by persons who had overflowed from the area in front of the jail.
At Courvoisier's execution in 1840 it was the same, or worse.
As early as six a.m. the number assembled already exceeded that seen on ordinary occasions;
by seven a.m. the whole space was so thronged that it was impossible to move one way or the other.
Some persons were kept for more than five hours standing against the barriers, and many nearly fainted from exhaustion.
Every window had its party of occupants; the adjoining roofs were equally crowded.
High prices were asked and paid for front seats or good standing room. As much as £5 was given for the attic story
of the Lamb's Coffee House;
£2 was a common price for a window.
At the George public-house to the south of the drop, Sir W. Watkin Wynn, Baronet,
hired a room for the night and morning, which he and a large party of friends occupied before and during the execution;
in an adjoining house, that of an undertaker, was Lord Alfred Paget, also with several friends.
Those who had hired apartments spent the night in them, keeping up their courage with liquids and cigars.
Numbers of ladies were present, although the public feeling was much against their attendance.
One well-dressed woman fell out of a first-floor window on to the shoulders of the crowd below, but neither she nor any one else was greatly hurt.
The city authorities had endeavored to take all precautions against panic and excitement among the crowd,
and caused a number of stout additional barriers to be erected in front of the scaffold,
and although one of these gave way owing to the extraordinary pressure, no serious accident occurred.
Some years later an eye-witness published a graphic account of one of these scenes.
Soon after midnight on the Sunday night, for by this time the present practice of executing on Monday morning had been pretty generally introduced,
the crowd began to congregate in and about the Old Bailey.
Gin-shops and coffee-houses were the first to open doors, and touts began to bid for tenants for the various rooms upstairs.
Cries of "Comfortable room!" "Excellent situation!" "Beautiful prospect!" "Splendid view!" resounded on every side.
By this time the workmen might be heard busily erecting the gallows;
the sounds of hammer and saw intermingled with the broad jeers and coarse jests of the rapidly increasing mob.
One by one the huge uprights of black timber were fitted together,
until presently the huge stage loomed dark above the crowd which was now ranged round the barriers;
a throng of people whom neither rain, snow, storm, nor darkness ever hindered from attending the show.
They were mainly members of the criminal classes.
their conversation was of companions and associates of former years, long ago imprisoned, transported, hanged, while they,
hoary-headed and hardened in guilt, were still at large.
They talked of the days when the convicts were hung up a dozen or more in a row;
of those who had shown the white, and those who had died game.
The approaching ceremony had evidently no terrors for these "idolaters of the gallows."
With them were younger men and women:
the former already vowed to the same criminal career, and looking up to their elders with the respect due to successful practitioners;
the latter unsexed and brutalized by dissipation,
slipshod and slovenly, in crushed bonnet and dirty shawl, the gown fastened by a single hook,
their harsh and half-cracked voices full of maudlin, besotted sympathy for those about to die.
Above the murmur and tumult of that noisy assembly, the lowing and bleating of cattle as they were driven into the stalls and pens of Smithfield
fell with a strange unnatural sound upon the ear
Hush! the unceasing murmur of the mob now breaks into a loud deep roar,
a sound as if the ocean had suddenly broken through some ancient boundary, against which its ever restless billows had for ages battered;
the wide dark sea of heads is all at once in motion;
each wave seems trying to overleap the other as they are drawn onwards towards this outlet.
Every link in that great human chain is shaken, along the whole lengthened line has the motion jarred, and each in turn sees,
coiled up on the floor of the scaffold like a serpent, the hangman's rope!
The human hand that placed it there was only seen for a moment,
as it lay, white and ghastly, upon the black boards, and then again was as suddenly withdrawn, as if ashamed of the deed it had done.
The loud shout of the multitude once more subsided, or only fell upon the abstracted ear like the dreamy murmur of an ocean shell.
Then followed sounds more distinct and audible, in which ginger-beer, pies, fried fish, sandwiches, and fruit
were vended under the names of notorious murderers, highwaymen, and criminals,
famous in the annals of Newgate for the hardihood they had displayed in the hour of execution, when they terminated their career of crime at the gallows.
Threading his way among these itinerant vendors was seen the meek-faced deliverer of tracts, the man of good intentions, now bonneted,
now laughed at, the skirt of his seedy black coat torn across; yet,
though pulled right and left, or sent headlong into the crowd by the swing of some brutal and muscular arm,
Never once from that pale face passed away its benign and patient expression.
but ever the same form moved along in the fulfillment of his mission, in spite of all persecution.
Another fight followed the score which had already taken place; this time two women were the combatants.
Blinded with their long hair, they tore at each other like two furies; their bonnets and caps were trodden underfoot in the kennel,
and lay disregarded beside the body of the poor dog which, while searching for its master in the crowd,
was an hour before kicked to death by the savage and brutal mob.
Another deep roar, louder than any which had preceded it, broke from the multitude.
Then came the cry of 'Hats off!' and 'Down in front!' as at a theatre.
It was followed by the deep and solemn booming of the death-bell from the church of St. Sepulchre
the iron knell that rang upon the beating heart of the living man who was about to die;
and with blanched cheek, and sinking, we turned away from the scene.
In thus describing the saturnalia before the gallows I have been drawn on somewhat beyond the period with which I am at present dealing.
Let me retrace my steps, and speak more in detail of the treatment of the condemned in those bloodthirsty and brutally indifferent days,
and of their demeanor after sentence until the last penalty was paid.
One of the worst evils was the terrible and long-protracted uncertainty as to the result.
In the case of convicted murderers only was prompt punishment inflicted,
and with them indeed this dispatch amounted to undue precipitancy.
Forty-eight hours was the limit of time allowed to the unhappy man to make his peace, and during that time he was still kept on a bare allowance of bread and water.
But the murderers formed only a small proportion of the total number sentenced to death, and for the rest there was a long period of anxious suspense,
although in the long run mercy generally prevailed, and very few capitally convicted for crimes less than murder actually suffered.
Thus in the years between May 1st, 1827, and 30th April, 1831,
no less than four hundred and fifty-one sentences of death for capital crimes were passed at the Old Bailey;
but of these three hundred and ninety-six were reversed by the king in council, and only fifty-two were really executed.
Already the severity of our criminal code, and the number of capital felonies upon the statute book, had brought a reaction;
and while the courts adhered to the letter of the law, appeals were constantly made to the royal prerogative of mercy.
This was more particularly the practice in London.
Judges on assize were satisfied with simply recording a sentence of death against offenders whom they did not think deserved the extreme penalty.
At the Old Bailey almost every one capitally convicted by a jury was sentenced to be hanged.
The result in the latter case was left in the first place to the king in council,
but there was a further appeal then, as now, to the king himself, or practically to the Home Secretary.
Neither in town or country were cases entirely taken on their own merits.
Convicted offenders might have good or bad luck; they might be arraigned when their particular crime was uncommon, and were then nearly certain to escape;
or theirs might be one of many, and it might be considered necessary to "make an example."
In this latter it might fairly be said that a man was put to death less for his own sins than for the crimes of others.
The absurdity of the system, its irregularity and cruelty, were fully touched upon by the inspectors of prisons in their first report.
They found at Newgate, under disgraceful conditions as already described,
seventeen capital convicts, upon all of whom the sentence of death had been passed. Eventually two only of the whole number suffered;
two others were sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and the balance to varying terms.
Nothing could be more strongly marked than the contrast between the ultimate destiny of different individuals all abiding the same awful doom:
on the one hand the gallows, on the other a short imprisonment.
The inspectors very properly desired to call attention to the inevitable tendency in this mode of dealing with "the most awful sanctions of the law,"
to make those sanctions an object of contemptuous mockery.
The consequences were plainly proved to the inspectors.
Capitally convicted prisoners did, as a matter of fact, "treat with habitual and inexpressible levity the sentence of death."
Of this I have treated at length in the last chapter.
The time thus spent varied considerably,
but it was seldom less than six weeks. It all depended upon the sovereign's disposition to do business.
Sometimes the Privy Council did not meet for months, and during all that time the convicts languished with hope
nearly indefinitely deferred.
When the council had decided, the news was conveyed to Newgate by the Recorder, who made his "report," as it was called.
The time of the arrival of this report was generally known at Newgate,
and its contents were anxiously awaited by both convicts in the press-yard and their friends collected in a crowd outside the gates.
Sometimes the report was delayed.
On one occasion, Mr. Wakefield tells us, the Recorder, who had attended the council at Windsor, did not deliver the report till the following day.
The prisoners and their friends, therefore, were kept in a state of the most violent suspense for many hours,
during which they counted the moments -- the prisoners in their cells as usual, and their friends in the street in front of Newgate, where they passed the night.
I have heard the protracted agony of both classes described by those who witnessed it in terms so strong, that I am unwilling to repeat them.
The crowd of men and women who passed the night in front of Newgate, began, as soon as the hour was passed when they had expected the report,
to utter imprecations against the Recorder, the Secretary of State, the Council, and the King;
they never ceased cursing until the passion of anger so excited was exchanged for joy in some and grief in others.
I myself heard more than one of those whose lives were spared by that decision of the council,
afterwards express a wish to murder the Recorder for having kept them so long in suspense.
The Recorder's report generally reached Newgate late at night.
Its receipt was immediately followed by the promulgation of its contents to the persons most closely concerned,
which was done with a sort of ceremony intended to be impressive.
The whole of the convicts were assembled together in one ward, and made to kneel down.
To them entered the chaplain or ordinary of Newgate in full canonicals,
who in solemn tones communicated to each in turn the fate in store for him.
The form of imparting the intelligence was generally the same.
"So-and-so, I am sorry to tell you that it is all against you;" or,
"A. B., your case has been taken into consideration by the king in council, and His Majesty has been mercifully pleased to spare your life."
The fatal news was not always received in the same way.
The men who were doomed often fell down in convulsions upon the floor.
Sometimes any who had had a narrow escape fainted, but the bulk of those respited looked on with unfeeling indifference.
The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume 2. By Arthur Griffiths. Section 12: Executions, part two.
It is satisfactory to be able to record that some consideration was shown the capital convict actually awaiting execution.
Even so severe a critic as Mr. Wakefield states that "a stranger to the scene
would be astonished to observe the peculiar tenderness, I was going to add respect,
which persons under sentence of death obtain from all the officers of the prison.
Before sentence a prisoner has only to observe the regulations of the jail in order to remain neglected and unnoticed.
Once ordered to the cells, friends of all classes suddenly rise up; his fellow-prisoners, the turnkeys, the chaplain,
the keepers, and the sheriffs all seem interested in his fate, and he can make no reasonable request that is not at once granted by whomsoever he may address.
This rule has some, but very few, exceptions; such as where a hardened offender behaves with great levity and brutality, as if he cared nought for his life,
and thought every one anxious to promote his death.
Mr. Wakefield goes on to remark that persons convicted of forgery "excited an extraordinary degree of interest in all who approached them."
This was noticeable with Fauntleroy, who, on account of his birth and antecedents, was allowed to occupy a turnkey's room,
and kept altogether separate from the other prisoners until the day of his death.
It cannot be denied, however, that the ordinary's treatment was somewhat unfeeling, and in proof thereof
I will quote an extract from the reverend gentleman's own journal.
He seems to have improved the occasion when preaching the condemned sermon before Fauntleroy, by pointing a moral from that unhappy man's own case.
For this the chaplain was a few days later summoned before the jail committee of aldermen,
and informed that the public would not in future be admitted to hear the condemned sermon. "I was also informed," writes Mr. Cotton,
that this resolution was in consequence of their (the aldermen's) disapproving of the last discourse delivered by me,
previous to the execution of Henry Fauntleroy for uttering a forged security
in which it was said I had enlarged upon the heinous nature of his crime, and warned the public to avoid such conduct.
I was informed that this unnecessarily harassed his feelings, and that the object of such sermons was solely to console the prisoner,
and that from the time of his conviction nothing but what is consolatory should be addressed to a criminal.
One of the aldermen, moreover, informed me that the whole court of aldermen were unanimous in their opinion on this subject.
As to the exclusion of strangers on these occasions,
the experience I have had convinces me that one, and perhaps the only, good of an execution, i. e. the solemn admonition to the public,
will thereby be lost.
Probably the reader will side with the aldermen against the ordinary.
This episode throws some doubt upon the tenderness and proper feeling exhibited by the chaplain towards the most deserving members of his criminal flock;
and the idea will be strengthened by the following account of the Sunday service in the prison chapel on the occasion when the condemned sermon was preached.
The extract is from Mr. E. Gibbon Wakefield's brochure, the date 1828, just three years after Fauntleroy's death.
Strangers were now excluded, but the sheriffs attended in state, wearing their gold chains,
while behind their pew stood a couple of tall footmen in state liveries.
The sheriffs were in one gallery;
in the other opposite were the convicts capitally convicted who had been respited.
Down below between the galleries was the mass of the prison population;
the schoolmaster and the juvenile prisoners being seated round the communion-table, opposite the pulpit.
In the center of the chapel was the condemned pew, a large dock-like erection painted black.
Those who sat in it were visible to the whole congregation, and still more to the ordinary,
whose desk and pulpit were just in front of the condemned pew, and within a couple of yards of it.
The occupants of this terrible black pew were the last always to enter the chapel.
Upon the occasion which I am describing they were four in number; and here I will continue the narrative in Mr. Wakefield's own words:
First is a youth of eighteen, condemned for stealing in a dwelling-house goods valued above five pounds.
His features have no felonious cast;
he steps boldly with head upright, looks to the women's gallery, and smiles. His intention is to pass for a brave fellow,
but the attempt fails; he trembles, his knees knock together, and his head droops as he enters the condemned pew.
The next convict is clearly and unmistakably a villain.
He is a hardened offender, previously cast for life, reprieved, transported to Australia, and since returned without pardon.
For this offense the punishment is death.
He has, however, doubly earned his sentence, and is actually condemned for burglary committed since his arrival in England.
His look at the sheriffs and the ordinary is full of scorn and defiance.