Daily Republican., 1879-12-05
ANOTHER GALLOws BUNaLE.
A Murderer Breaks the Bher1H's
Rope at smithport. Pa, Yester-
AnX


Rope at sInithport. Pa, Yester.
day.
Between the hours of one and two
O'Clock yesterday, Andrew Tracy, of
Smithport, Mexican county, Pa, suf.
fered the extreme penalty for the mur-
der of Mary Reilly. Wednesday even
ing att o'clock his four brothers and
two sisters visited his cell and after re-
naming one hour took final leave of
the condemned man. He expressed the
deepest emotion when bidding farewell
to his sister Mary, who has beer warm
est in her untiring zeal and made the
greatest efforts to avert the death he
met yesterday.
He conversed at considerable length
in Latin with his two brothers, Thomas
and Michael, and made many express
sions of his innocence of this crime in
sight of God. His spiritual advisers,
Fathers Dent, Mckinley and Apple,
were with him during the night. At
IL he refused an opiate and slept from
4 until 7 A. NJ.
At l o'clock ore hundred persons
had assembled in the corridor to wit
ness the execution. At 1.30 Sheriff
Sartwell issued from the cell, follow sd
by the priests supporting Tracy, depu-
ties bringing up the rear, and slowly
descended from the third corridor to
the floor below. Then the procession
moved to the gallows, where the min
istering fathers performed the Catholic
services.
When the Executor asked him If he
had anything to say why the sentence
of the law should not be fulfilled, he
answered with clear voice, in the
shortest possible sentence, that he had
not. After this his limbs were COM
pletely bound and he was placed upon
the drop. At las the rope was cut
and the condemned man was swung in
mid-air for an instant, but the knot
was not properly adjusted and he
dropped with dull thud to the stone
floor below.
His halt senseless form was agsin as
sisted to the scaffold. While the rope
was being readjusted Tracy recovered
CONSCIOUSNESS, and at the request of a
priest repeated part Of the Litany. He
tainted in an attendants arms, howev-
or, and again recovering repeated words
after the priest. Ten minutes later the
trap was again sprung and the priso-
ner's neck was broken by the fall.
His pulse ceased to beat ten minutes
after and the remains were cut down.
They were delivered to his friends and
taken to the Catholic church.
1t was said that to-day the Titusville
"Herald" would publish the posthu-
nous statement of Andrew Tracy, the
unfortunate young lawyer, who was
hanged at Smithport, McKsan county,
for the murder OF his cousin, Miss Mary
Reilly, in September, 1878. The docu-
ment will ill nearly four columns of the
"Hersld," is written in remarkably
well chosen language, and IS itself in
teresting.
1t was prepared during the latter
months of Tracy's incarceration with
great care, and perhaps few po.thumous
statements have ever appeared in a
more attractive form, and Tracy claims
that the deed was not murder, but was
instigated by his intense love for Miss
Kelley, whom he says he could not bear
to think of marrying another.
Their love, it seems was mutual, but
her objection to their marriage was
their near blood relationship. The case
is one that created intense interest
throughout Pennsylvania and Western
Now York