The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1875-03-05

y
Ct saw wretch executed who had MUIR
dered his master, for which he had his
head chopped off by an axe that slid
down frame of timber between the two
tall columns In st. Marks piazza, at the
sea brink-the executioner striking ON
the axe with beetle, and so the head
fell off the block"
Pepys evidently delighted in execu-
tions. On April 10, 1852, he goes to
draper's corner shop and " did see Bark
stead, Okey, and Corbet, drawn toward
the gallows at Tiburne they all looked
very cheerful" In the following June,
"about IL O'Clock, having room got
ready for us, we all went to the Tower
Hill, and there saw Sir Harry Vane
brought. The scaffold was SO crowded
that we could not see it done.
The most resolved man (and Pepys spoke
with very large experience) that ever
died in that manner. De-
sired they wor.ld let him die like o gem
ueman and Christian, and not pressed
and crowded as he was. !" On june 1S
he writes, 'sThe courage of Sir H. Vane
at his death is talked of everywhere as q
miracle"
In February, 1862, he accompanies
DIR. Scarborough and some of his friends,
after dining at Surgeons Hall, to see
the body of a lusty fellow, seaman, that
was hanged for robbery. 1t seems one
Dillon, of a great family, was, after
much endeavor to have saved him,
hanged with silken halter this sessions,
of his own preparing, not for honor only,
but it being soft and sleek it do slip close
and kills, that is strangles presently !;
whereas, a stiff one do not come SO close
together, and SO the party may live the
longer. But all the doctors at table con-
clude that there Is no pain at all in hang
ing, for that it do stop the circulation of
the blood, and so stops all sense and mo-
ton in an instant. In January, 1868,
Pepys is sup to get place to see Tur-
ner hanged, and got for a shilling to
stand upon the wheel of cart in great
pain above an hour. At last he was
flung off the ladder in his cloak"
In 1868 there is dreadful disappoint-
ment. ttAway with Mr.. Pierce, the sur
geon, toward Tyburn, to see the people
executed, but came too late, it being done:
two men and woman hanged"
France has upon its records the chron-
icle of some exceptionally terrible execu-
tions by breaking on the wheel and tear
ing asrlnder.
In 1756 there was published in Paris
for the Historical Society of France q
highly interesting journal of the reign of
Louis XIV, by N. Barber, aVoc0t ass
Parlement de Paris. This gentleman
gives detailed account of one of the
most terrible executions that ever took
place, that of Damiens, in 1857, for
attempting the life of that most utterly
despicable of modern monarchs, Louis
XIV.
The punishment began about %. m.
with the burning of his hand, and tear
ing off of flesh with red hot pincers and
pouring in melted lead, when he made
the most terrible cries. Afterward he
was torn asunder.
In his commentary ON the 117th sec
ton of Littleton's ssTenures," Coke
| says: +" The worst tenure have read of
! Is to hold lands to be hangman or exe-
cutioner. 1t seemeth in ancient times
such officers were not voluntaries, nor
for lucre to be hired, unless they were
bound thereunto by tenure. To Shake
speare the fact of hereditary hangmen
was familiar, probably, as In the Manor
of Stoneley, the seat of o famous abbey,
IN his native county of Warwick, there
were anciently four bondmen, whereof
each held one messuage and one quar-
toon of land by the service of making the
gallows and hanging the thieves. Each
of which bondsmen was to wear O red
clout betwixt his shoulders upon his up
per garment to plow, reap, make the
lords malt, and do other seryile work. .
At the beginning of the century there
yet fingered barbaric custom of hang
ing in chains
writer in 1873 says: !: s'Some fifty
five or more years ago, but less thar
sixty, I made my first trip to Margate
and saw a pirate hanging In chains upoI
gallows erected by the side of the
Thames" An idea was prevalent some
years ago that hanging atiUe in chains
in England. But this was not so i
was rather an extraordinary torture sane
toned by usage. The last execution b,
hanging of nobleman In England wa.
that of Lord Ferrers for the murder o
his steward. As he was going to execu
ton in his landau and six. Mr.. Hum
phries, chaplain of the Tower, ,wher,
Lord Ferrers was detained, took occa
sion to observe that the world woul,
naturally be very inquisitive concerning
the religion his lordship professed. ant
asked him If he chose to say anything
upon that subject To which his lord
ship replied that he did not think him
self accountable to the world for his sen
timents on religion, but that he hal
always believed in and adored one God
the Maker of all things that whateve
his notions were he had never propo
l, gated them, or endeavored to gain an,
persons over to his persuasion that al
countries and nations had form of re
. hgion by which the people were gov
/ erned, and that he looked upon whoeve
disturbed them IN it as an enemy t.
society that he very much blamed m,
! Lord Bolingbroke for permitting hi
sentiments on religion to be published t.
the world that the many facts and dis
putes which happen about religion hay
almost turned morality ont of doors
He could never believe that faith alon
could save man. His own crime, b
I said, was committed when he was besid
himself through vexation. In his apart
ment were found, it is said, the lines,
'' In doubt liv'd, in doubt die,
Yet stand prepared the vast abyss 10 try,
And andismayd expect eternity.v
Up to the close of the last century
woman who murdered her husband
J the crime was termed petty treason
was, in England, sentenced to be burned
!, and In the last century girl was burne.
, at Norwich for the murder of her mis-
J, tress. Forgery seems to have been aini
! larly dealt with in the case of q woman
Il A London newspaper of the year IT'S
announces that jeremiah Grace and Mar
] garet Sullivan, convicted for feioniorsl,
and traltorously coioring with certail