Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1884-04-16
Death Of a Jack Ketch.

William Marwood, common hanGman
of all England and the latest professional
successor to Jack Ketch, died day or
two ago and now there is not person
in Great Britain or Ireland who is author
| lied to strangle criminals on the gallows.
He was shoemaker by trade and a
public executioner by profession. Cal
craft was his immediate predecessor
and instructor, and when that worthy
died dozen years ago Marwood got
the appointment under some pretense
that he had discovered new way of
hanging people without pain. He took
great pride in his singular vocation and
has frequently been heard to say: eli
never makes botch hof job. When
Hi lets the chap drop 'c's done for, and
don't make no fuss by kickin' and strug-
glin'. Is always civil with the poor
devils as can't help themselves, and the
neatcr the job the better he's satisfied. :"
In spite of his Boosting, however, he did
hanging that took place in Durham only
two or three weeks ago, but his awk-
wardness on that occasion was charged
up to an immoderate dose of rum. In
deed, like many other useful public
functionaries, he is said to have brought
his valuable life to close by too much
drink. He was only about fifty years of
age, but is credited with having ''worked
OFF, nearly four hundred persons first
and last-the men Mt fifty dollars Il head
and the women at seventy-five dollars
Among his recent patients were the
Phoenix Park assassins in Dublin. His
entire business brought him an aver
age income for the last twelve
years of something like 80, 900 annually,
besides what he made in the boot and
shoe line and by the sale of leather laces
to those who came to see him out OF
curiosity. He was honored soon after
his accession to Office by having his
image placed in Madame Tussaud's
show of wax figures in London, and his
name was used to brighten children with
in the north of England.
The true glory of the hangman de-
parted, however, long before Mr.. Mar
wood assembled the scatlold. He did
not approach in Importance those an
cient and mighty hangmen who de-
capitated traitors with an AK and then
burned their entrails in public and stuck
their bloody heads on the spikes of Lon
don Bridge and Temple Bar. He did
not enjoy the luxury of scourging pick
pockets at whipping-post by the Old
Bailey, or fogging women at the carts
tail upon the bare back, or burning
them at the stake when they had killed
their husbands or made counterfeit
money. He did not know how 1t would
seem to press a man to death because
he would not plead in court, as was
done in numerous cases in Old England
and in one case in New England two
hundred years ago, and did not even
have the pleasure of burning heretical,
reasonable or blasphcmous books in
tho market place by order Of Parlia-
ment or high court. The common hang
man has but little now to do in COM
parison with his important services in
former times, and It may be that the
abolition of capital punishment will ex-
tend from Michigan to England in the
course Of the present century, and that
Mr.. Marwoods immediate successor,
who has not yet been named, will DO
the last British representative of the
tribe of Jack Ketch.--DetroI Post and
Tribune.