Huntsville gazette., 1890-03-01
HALVES HANGED!
The Triple Murderer
Dies Game.
The Drop Falls at One p. m.
and the Culprit is Pro-
nounced Dead in
Seven Minutes.
Five Thousand Persons
Surround the Jail. while
Large Crowds Occupy
Positions of Vantage on
Housetops and Chin
neyS.
Tickets Of Admission to the
Exec utiOn were Sold
ats 20 each.
HIS DYING STATEMENT.
Special to THE MERCURY.

Special to THE MERCURY.
BIRMINGHAM, Feb. 2S.-Dick Hawes
was hanged in the Jail yard here today,
for the murder Of bis wife and two chill
dren in December 1888. From an early
hour in the morning crowds of curiosity
seekers gathered in the neighborhood of
the Jail, and by noon fully five thousand
were present; restless, surging, excited
mass. As the hour of execution drew
nigh, every housetop in the neighbor-
hood swarmed with human beings, and
every chimney that commanded q view
of the Jail yard, was black with the NOR
bid crowd whose curiosity in seeing
fellow-being strangled to death impelled
them to climb to dizzy heights and brave
the chilly elements.
CURIOSITY RUN WILD.
Seldom has the world witnessed such
an eager, clamoring, gaping multitude,
as surrounded the city Jail to-day. Spec
ulation as to how the condemned would
meet his fate was the all-absorbing topic
of conversation. None pitied the man
who was so soon to expiate his crime on
the gallows, and it was noticeable that
the sympathy usually felt for condemned
criminals in their last moments was not
manifested ON this occasion.
WITHIN THE PRISON.
Hawes spent his last night on earth in
prayer and reading the Bible until past
midnight. He then retired, and the
death watch knew that his last night of
weary watching and patient vigil was
fast drawing to close.
During the morning the Sheriff was
besieged with applications from persons
who longed to witness the death struggles
of Dick Halves, and numbers of tickets
of admission were sold as high as $40
each. The spiritual advisers of the con-
demned, DR.. Purser, of the Baptist
church, and DR.. Mccoy, of the Methodist
church, were untiring in their attentions
in offering spiritual consolation to the
man so soon to enter the valley Of the
shadow.
THOUGHTS oF.sUIOIDE.
After breakfast when the prison bar
Der called to shave Hawes he offered
the barber 800 for the razor. The mod
est sum was refused, and the barber
shaved his prison patron for the last
time on earth. In conversation with the
barber he stated that he was ready to die
and would rather 60 to the grave than
spend ten years in the Pratt mines.
ON THE GALLOwS.
At 1910 the procession started for the
scaffold. As it came in sight every head
was barred in token of the solemnity of
the occasion, and every neck was craned
to catch a glimpse Of the man SO soon to
be launched into eternity. Hawes was
neatly dressed in black diagonal cutaway
suit, in the lapel of the coat,
BUTTON HOLE BOUQUET,
was daintily placed. He looked pale,
but resolute and had evidently nerved
himself to meet his doom bravely. He
aseended the steps Of the gallows dis
playing the utmost resolution, and show
ing the nerve of stole. He was the
calmest and most collected man around
the fatal death trap.
HIS LAST WORDS.
When asked If he had anything to say,
he spoke in voice, without tremor
and said: "Don't think that die with q
lie on my lips; boys, let liquor and bad
women alone; I wish to say to the Silent
Eye don't misrepresent me, / have left a
written confession which is the truth in