The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-07-08
Accounts by Eye Witnesses.

SING SING, n. Y, July THE
electrocution of the four murderers,
Slocum, Smller, Wood and Jugiro, was done
this morning. Slocum was killed at 4 :421 +,
Smiler at 5:13, Wood at 5:39 and Jugiro at
GOO.
a group of newspaper men lounging on
the stone steps aud bluff opposite the
prison saw the first signal announcing one
Of the men had paid the penalty for murder
with his life. 1t was small white flag
which was run to the top of the pole and
then pulled down. 1t was prearranged
signal that Slocum, the baseball player,
the man who hacked his wife to death with
an axe, had died just i've minutes before.
Before the flag was set the news was on a
dozen waiting wires. Close calculation
fixes the time of Slocum's death at 4:42I<.
There was little hustle outside when the
white flag went up, but as soon as il came
down everything became quiet again. The
death-iike silence which followed the
hustle caused by the raising OF the flag was
oppressive.
At 5:l5 o'clock the first rays of the morn
ing sun topped the eastern bluff and bright
ened up the scene. a square of blue bunt-
ing which crawled slowly up the pole at
SIG announced Smiler, the Salvation army
boy, the slayer of his third wife, had given
life for life. Five minutes before il took
place an attendant had 10 go to the top of
the prison ard hoist the signal.
No one knew exactly who was inside that
board house with carefully screened win
dows. No one knew just all who were the
legal witnesses to the killing, but this is
supposed to be list: DIR. Southwick, Buff
falo; DIR. Daniels, Buffalo; DR.. Carlos f.
Mcdonald, state board of lunacy, New
York; DR.. Alphonze ID. Rockwell. New
Franklin Townsend, Auburn; DR.. Barker,
of the locel prison staff, DIR. Haramberger,
Prof. Louis II. Landy, New York; Father
Hogan, Rev. John Il. Creedon, Deputy At
torney- General Hoffman, c. +. Davis, cleo
trician, and Charles Durston, warden of
Auburn prison. The witnesses had re-
manned in the prison ell night. 1t was the
idea of the warden to keep them within the
walls where they could not be interviewed
and where they could have no chance TO
talk to anyone.
There was some speculation as to what
color the next flag would be and whether
Lawyer Hare had succeeded in the object
OF his visit to the warden in behalf of the
negro Wood. There was not much time
for speculation, for at 5:44 o'clock black
flag went up the pole. Ii was a settled
fact that the negro Wood, who killed his
companion on the scqueduct during quar-
rel, was dead.
The Jap, that big muscular Shibuya Ju-
GIRO who in MT OF rage, stabbed to death
one of his countrymen, was to come next.
The flag of death for him was red. 1t was
believed the taking OF the foreigner to the
chair would DC a hard task, and there would
be such scene in the death chamber that
the warden, who talked of killing men as
he would of beheading chickens for his
SUNDAY dinner, could not forget as long as
he lived. The Jap had queer idea about
death. He believed that when he was
taken to that mysterious room he was to
be tortured. He had said, as well as he
could that he would fight before he would
sit In that chair. The displacement OF the
wires or of the harness, caused by a strug-
GLE would mean torture. The watchers
anxioisly looked up at the pole on the roof
to see the red flag To announce to them the
death of Jugiro. 1t was long in coming;
that fact savored of struggle. 1t was all
over presently, the law had been carried
out to the letter. and the red flag went up.
The Jap died at :06 o'clock.
The entire time consumed in executing
the four men was an hour, twenty-three
aud a half minutes.
The mistakes of the electrical experts
which made the execution OF kemmler in
part failure, were carefully avoided to-
day. The causes of accidents and delays
at Auburn were known to the warden at
Sing Sing and they had been anticipated in
arrangements for the execution of the four
men who were to be put to death during
this week. The tested voltage of the
dynamos had been brought up to 5000,
while the estimated voltage which was
turned into Kemmler's body was only $50.
The weakness of the current Al Kemmler's
execution was chargeable in part to the
slipping of the belts on the dynamos, and
especial precaution had been taken to avoid
this today. The dynamo used was
Westinghouse, the counterpart of
the style used at Auburn, but it was
supplemented by small dynamos intended
to augment the current- AT to-day's exc
cution the executioner was in q small
closet with an open top, through which he
could hear anything said to him by the
Continued on page q