Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1889-07-11
HlpEous COUNTER ANcss.
Masks OF the Faces of MurdereTs
Taken Just After Execution

Masks OF the Faces of Murderers
Taken Just After Exc cutlon.
1t was the practice of the authori-
ties up TO tho time of the murder OF
Mr.. Briggs to take cast OF the heads
and faces OF criminals after exec ution,
says the London Sunday Times. Our
guide commenced his tour of the prison
with an exhibition Of cupboard full
OF these memorials. 1t was a chastity
show OF fearful countenances, low
foreheads, large brutal mouths, fall
necks, strong jaws and weak, broad
chins and narrow, and beneath them
all the mark OF the rope which had
strangled them. Seea in this fashion
the criminal countenances were no
doubt considerably discounted, but not
so seriously as "a caricturist OF some OF
our public men would have us believe.
How certain OF the shining lights OF
the day might look shorn Of their
hair, and in prison dress, offers a
temptation to any artist who is OPP
posed in politics to the man he is
drawing, but he would have TO give
rein to mis- bitterest Imagination to
Katch the cOuntenances in the war
den's cupboard at Newgate. l could
not help thinking that Franz Muller
was something like-but let us not be
personal.
"This is the head of Martha Brown
ing, who murdered her mistress, you
will remember. in Park lane-killing
her for the sake of some bank notes
which, when she got them, turned out
to be on the Bank of Elegance. This
(tapping the grim bust with curious
familiarity is Franz Muller, who MUIR
dered Mr. Briggs, and, aftey denying
his guilt almost TO the last, confessed
it in conversation with his Lutheran
priest. This is Greenacre, who cut
the body OF his victim up in pieces and
hid them in various parts of the town"
Greenacre's was a tell-tale mask-a
low forehead OF the worst form, and
thin, wide mouth, that had the
downward drag" still and cruel. A
good thing for some of us that we DO
not shave Do you remember the
mustache movement? 1t was probably
started by some interested person who
did not care to go about with his
wicked mouth exposed TO the general
gaze. Leech did same of his most
characteristic sketches in Punch dur
illS bildV iuIlOuS DCllON. Il WAS NlSlI-
ing at n little provincial town in those
days whore the leading draper of the
place had been hooted and called
"Frenchy" and pelted for coming back
after holiday with beard and mus
tache. And | remember as boy TINT
the records of the Burke murders were
sJill used as DOGGY by nursemaids
whose charges would not keep close to
their apron-strings. The feae of be-
ing "burked' was lively one for
many a long year after Burke was
hanged at Edinburg and Bishop and
Williams at Newgate.
"These are the heads of Bishop and
Williams" said our guide, pointing to
a particularly ugly couple; "they muir
dered little Italian boy and offered
the corpse at Kings College for twelve
guineas they were bodysnatchers.
And this is Mrs Brownrigg, who used
to take little girls as apprentices and
then murder them; that was in 1888"
"Do yoa notice that some OF the
masks have open eyes?" asked the bar
rister.
Yes, and they remind me of the
line in Poe: His eyes have all the
seeming of demons that is dree"
ing.'"