Huntsville gazette., 1886-05-08
PUBLIC EXECUTIONERS.
Men Who Have Held the Office in
France and England.


Readers familiar with that most curl.
Gus and interesting work, "The Mem
oirs of the Samson Family" are aware
that the bearer of that lurid title, Mon
sieur de Paris, was a person of no small
consideration, The first of the San
sons, in which family the Office of pub
lie executioner to the metropolis OF
France was hereditary for nearly two
hundred years, was a man of noble
family and an officer in cavalry regi-
ment. CHARTERED in Dieppe in 1862, he
was thrown from his horse and carried
wounded and stunned into cottage
on the outskirts of the town. Tenderly
nursed by the only daughter of its
owner, he fell in love with the pretty
Marguerite. He had rivals for the
girls affections, and quarrels and duels
resulted. Finally cynical friend took
the young soldier to the place of exc
cution and showed him the father of
his sweetheart engaged in his CHASTITY
professional duties. Getting into
trouble with his military superiors be-
cause of his infatuation for the heads
mans daughter, young Samson de
Longval broke his sword across his
knee, tore up his commission in the
face of his colonel, and, hurrying to the
executioner's house, demanded that
functionary's permission to wed his
daughter and carry her away to for
eign land, the father abandoning his
grim profession and accompanying the
pair. But the executioner demurred
to emigration, and would consent to
the match only on condition that San
son, wedding the executioner's daugh-
ter, should become an executioner him
self, and few days after the marriage
the young patrician was helping his
father-in-law to break criminal alive
on the wheel. So uncongenial was the
work that, to quote contemporary
record, 1.-THE said son-in-law fell in fit
and was hooted by the mob" How
ever, he became reconciled to his func-
tions. and in 1855 he exchanged his
provincial jurisdiction for that of the
capital of the kingdom" and became
Monsieur de Paris. 1t was his
grandson, Charles Henri Samson, who
was the executioner during the
fell revolutionary period. His
first professional duty, at the age of
seventeen, was to assist his uncle in
carrying out the ghastly details of the
execution of Damiens, which culmin-
ated in dismemberment by four wild
horses. 1t was in his time, 1892, that
the guillotine was substituted for the
halter and the block. Of that instru-
ment the medical gentleman after
whom it was named was not the in
ventor; that grim honor belongs to a
German musical instrument maker
named Schmidt, who used to practice
duets with Samson. One evening,
after the performance of an air
in '1phigenie en- Aulide," Samson
spoke to his friend of his
anxiety for an amended instrument
of execution, and Schmidt on the instant
drew a sketch plan of the contrivance
which drank so much blood in the rev.
olution. Its name was not inappropri-
ate, for it was DR.. Guillotin's enthusi-
astic advocacy of it in the Assem-
bly, which procured its adoption.
In the fervor of his devotion he pro-
tested that the culprit dying by it
would "only feel slight freshness in
the neck" Rising with his subject, he
addressed the President: "With this
machine I chop your head off in a
twinkling, and you do not suffer. y
There is nothing apocryphal in the
story that King Louis XVI. inspected
the plan of the new machine, and that
it was his suggestion that for the cres-
cent-shaped knife edge which was the
original idea was substituted the
oblique edge, which practical expert
ments proved to be the true shape.
Ten months later King Louis head fell
under the instrument the improvement
IN which he had suggested.
j No such official recognition and po-
sition as belonged to the successive
Sansons adheres to the Office of hang
man in England. Our insular execu-
toner, indeed, is an accident rather
than a functionary. The duty Of eff
fecting the accomplishment of the
laws dread sentence devolves in the
provinces on the high sheriffs of Lon
don and Middlesex.. As matter OF
obvious convenience the city of Lon
don selects and pays q retaining fee to
person having the will and the skill
to carry out the repulsive duty of exc
cutioner. 1t is the practice to employ
him in that service all over the coun-
try, but this is merely matter OF ex.
pediency, and country practitioners"
have occasionally enjoyed consider
able share Of patronage. Calcraft was
hangmsn 50 long that his name had
nsSsad into 4 svnonvm Tor his o63c0,