The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-02-09
LII TIE BIRMINGHAM SHOP is
FULL OF UNCANNY HORRORS

scene is next presented The negro who
stands on the brink of death, to whose
lips the dark angel has drawn the deadly
draught. whose heart is beating so rap
idly that one imagines he can hear. whose
head is bent in fear if not repentance,
was the first to hang in Jefferson county
for the crime of highway robbery. He
was Walter Jones, and if one remembers
correctly held up at the point of pistol
an aged peddler and took his paltry
sum OF silver.
And then one beholds the countenance
OF the Duncan gang. Frank Duncan is
there and Frank Miller. both of whom
are gone-by means of the rope. The
ropes are shown, too. the cords at the
ends of which their bodies dangled until
the knots cut off the wind of the chest
and completed the task of stranguation.
And one, not forgetting the murder or
Kirlxley and Adams-how could one for
ket when the weapons with which these
murders were committed are next pre-
sented d?-feels at the same time kind
of pity-not in that the members Of the
gang were executed, but that they had
even lived.
An Extraordinary Mat
By no means are these the only relics
OF this aesthetic collection. The most
horrible perhaps has not as yet been
noted. 1t would not from any magnetism
of Its own, demand attention. For 1t is
mat, an ordinary mat-in appearance
which hangs upon the wall just above the
cage Of terrors. 1t is ordinary In appear
ance, but 1t is on one sense. the most
extraordinary mat ever made in Birming-
ham. And during the time it served
to protect a certain floor from the feet
of visitors one standing upon its face,
might have trembled in the knowledge
that each of its component threads served
FL. ieh n mt
of death to murderers in Jefferson
county. 1t Is said that this mat was
devised by William Love, at one time the
official hangman of this county. 1t is
made of thirteen ropes. Each of the
ropes served as the instrument of death
and OF torture to a man who had de-
prived a fellow man of life. And in each
of the 13 executions. Love played, in an
official capacity, the leading and most
spectacular role.
The mat hangs there very innocent in
appearance. And while one gazes, he
might see 1t take the form of heart.
and in the heart. might see the ebb and
flow of blood-baclx blood-not that of
the murderers who we're done to death,
but of the law, the stern, cruel. heart
less though Just blood of the law, And
one thinks that he would not have that
mat were there no others for the pro-
lection of floors and carpets, would not,
for any ordinary gift permit the foot of
his child to stand upon 1t, would not
have it lying in his hall way, to bring
back in the Silly hours of the night the
gloomy faces of the sad and bloody MUIR
derer's doomed
Photographs of the charred remains Of
negro rapists, Of the torn and mangied
bodies abused by the unruly temper of
the mob. They are all there. And one
thinks that II there, is place in Bir-
mingham where during the nights OF
winters while the winds howl and come
swapping out of the north, congregate
the ghosts of the diseased in mind whose
cure was the end of the rope of death,
that place must be the uncanny shop
where those gentle trophies lie.