The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-29 00:00:00

A WORD FOB JACK KETCH.

" Themis " thus writes to the Telegraph:—" Much has
been said to prejudice the public mind against poor Cal-
craft, whose only crime is that he is the minister of jus-
tice and the dread executor of the rigour of the law. I
happen to know the man, as the minister of the church in
which he worships, and a more worthy creature does not
exist. To stigmatise him as ahardhearted, cruel, low-lived,
crawling, crouching, fawning wretch, which some of the
papers, in connection with his duty as public executioner,
have done, is utterly wide of the fact. He is a good and
tender-hearted man, an habitual frequenter of a Church
of England place of worship, where his white head and
venerable appearance is pleasingly conspicuous, though
his identity is not generally known among the congrega-
tion. The execution of his duty is no pleasing topic
of conversation with him ; he takes no delight in
gratifying curiosity by enlarging on the dismal scenes
in which he takes so necessary a part ; he is modest
and unassuming. He is by trade a shoemaker,
and you might deal with him all your life and
have no more idea that he was the common hangman than
that he was the Grand Llama of Thibet. He is a very
devout attendant upon public worsliip, and a man of very
simple and straightforward mind, fulfilling all therelations
of domestic and social life in a •kindly and affectionate
manner. Calcraft is no monster, and no one, lam
persuaded, will be better pleased than he that he has no
longer to perform his unenviable duty in the face of an
excited and oftentimes exasperated mob."
Upon this the Telegraph founds a leader, remarking:
" If such is the truth, as our correspondent leads us to
believe, we can only say, the simple fact sharpens the
argument against having a public executioner at all.
Why should there be a single human creature —especially
one described as so amiable and worthy—who becomes
by his vocation utterly outcast and detested, and who,
being a citizen and a public official, dares not bear
his own name before his fellow-citizens, nor avow
himself in any assembly ? It is something gained that the
last of these dreadful exhibitions has been witnessed on the
outside of gaols. The hangman certainly benefits by the
change ; and it is a step towards that total abolition of the
Mosaic law of blood for blood which, at no distant date,
may be imperatively demanded by the growing spirit of
the age. It is probable that intramural strangulations
will not very long survive the ghastly practice outside.
But while it is still thought logical to teach respect for
human life by taking it away officially, why should
this hateful appointment of State butcher be
continued? It is not right—it is wholly and shamefully
wrong to call upon any man, or to allow any man, to put
himself outside the pale of humanity by taking a duty
which, with all the apologetic details of the letter of
Themis,' remains, as Marina phrases it, one for which `a
baboon, could he but think, would own a name too dear.'
If Calcraft is as "Themis' paints him, a very excellent
person, it only shows what a bitter injustice is done when
society visits the ignominy and horrible repulsiveness of
its own enactments upon an agent who meritoriously fulfils
them."