New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1880-08-04
Calcraft, the HangmAn.

II SUPPOSE that am the only person
with whom the late hangman had any
relations approaching friendship. Some
twelve years ago used to fish nearly
every Saturday afternoon in the Lea,
near Sewardstone. Afternoon after
afternoon there was wont to confront
me on the left bank a little old man
with long white beard. We began to
converse on fishing topics. and gradu-
ally grew quite intimate, always, how
ever, with the stream between us. At
length one day sudden thunder storm
came on and refuge had to be sought.
I counseled the old man to make for a
bridge, get to my side, and accompany
me to the Fountain, well-known fish
ing public house. AS we were ap-
preaching the public house he stopped
and said he would rather that I went in
alone. Ipressed him for his reason
Finally, with some emotion, he told me
who he was, spoke of the possibility of
being recognized; and the embarass
ment the recognition would cause to
me.
II always take man rs I find him;
and if Titus Oates were man of social
tendencies, I should not have the
slightest hesitation in standing him a
dinner at the Continental. Calcraft,
think, was touched, and we became al
most friends as we sat and drank while
the thunderstorm spent itself. Then
and afterward he told me some curious
anecdotes of his professional career.
Mrs. Manning, he said, was the worst
subject he had ever worked off. She
was somehow sort of distant cousin of
his, and when on the scaffold he spoke
to her soothingly. Her return was to
make her teeth almost meet in the ball
of his thumb as he pulled the nightcap
down over her face. He promised to
give me whole sheaves of anecdotes,
and i at one time contemplated his BIZ
ography; but was called abroad, and
never saw the old man afterward.
"There ran through Calcraft's ma
ture curious vein of romance. When
l knew him he had an only daughter,
just grown up, on whom he dotted. She
had found q sweetheart, SO he told me
one day in our crOss-stream gOssips,
and she asked her father to be allowed
to bring him home. Calcraft compelled
the girl to be candid with her lover as
to her fathers profession the ex-
preston was his own; but the girl could
not bring herself to speak out, and she
successfully entreated her father to
keep the gruesome secret also. The
lover was an assiduous visitor to the
maison Calcraft up the New North road
way, and the marriage day was actually
fixed. He owned that he was misora-
bic with the sense of false pretense
and the presentment of impending mis-
fortune. One night, after the lover had
said good-by to his girl, a genial neigh
Dor stopped him-a woman, of course,
Calcraft bitterly interpolated-and re-
vealed to the lover who his impending
father-in-law was. The fellow went
away and never came back. The girl
was miserable, and the poor old hang
man was doubly miserable, partly in
sympathy for his child s suffering, partly
in remorse for his own share in bringing
it about. Here is the theme for TRACE
dy in the hands of man like Mr.. Wills, y
London World.
MIR. Robert p. Crockett, the only
surviving son of .'Davy' Crockett,
has farm near Granbury, Texas, and
is the keeper of the bridge across the
Brazos River at that place. One of
his sons is one of the two editors and
proprietors Of a tlourishing newspaper
in that region.
Never try to get very heavy days
work out of team. Moderate and
steady going is what counts in long
race, and the farmers race is long
one. It takes but 9 few hours, or even
4 feW minutes, to 50 tsx Z horse that he
b out of tx for months.