San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-08-23

and replied with forcble emphasis in his broad Lam
cashire dialect:
"Tha's dom nowt OF kindv'
"Oh, yes, am" / replied. 81 am going to the
same place as you are whether go with you or not
He looked at me in silence for several moments,
Then he asked:
swell, where am going them"
"To Newcastle Prison." answered. land l have
been engaged as your assistant"
At that produced the governors letter, and con-
WINGED him of my bona fdes, and he then invited me
into his compartment and we got in No doubt the
watching crowd thought the incident had certain
amount of spice in it, for they observed closely and
kept round window until the train left the station
My companion proved to be William Ellington.
His father the famous James Ellington, had origi
nay been engaged for this job, but had caught a
cold while carrying out an execution at Manchester,
and so the commissioners had agreed to his passing
the appointment over to his son William.
When he had told me this Ellington seemed to
freeze up, and l, being stranger, did not like to
talk very much there very little conversation be-
tween after that until got to journeys end.
On arrival at Newcastle Ellington asked me to go
for some refreshment and we entered public house
close to the prison. We found seated in it three
women of striking appearance. They were all
dressed in furs and their fingers covered with
rings. Their identity not revealed to me, but we
could make shrewd guesses from their behavior that
they were connected with the condemned men.
They all weeping if their hearts were
broken, and kept Sobbing OUT
"Oh, poor John!" and "They have to go tomor-
row., and things of that kind.
When we realized who they Ellington said
quietly, Come on, will clear out of this" and
wasn't sorry to get away. felt touched on the
by the poor womens overlooking distress. Ss~<
We in the prison within very few mo-
ments, and as the outer gates changed behind us put
all these and other distractng thoughts away, and
resolved to concentrate on the business in hand.
The governor of the prison had us brought before
him, and told that alteration had been made in
the arrangements. Originally it had been intended
to hang both men at once but there had been hint
of trouble between the uncle and nephew, for the
latter persisted in viewing himself the victim of
the elder relatives plot The young man kept de-
claring he had no feeling against Mr.. Ferguson him
self, but that his uncle had taken advantage of his
intoxicated condition and put him up to committing
the murder.
Consequently, said the governor, it was feared
they might an unpleasant scene when they
stood side by side on the scaffod so two separate
executions had been decided. upon. The younger
would be executed at o'clock and the uncle at
$50 next morning.
We signfed our understanding of these arrange
merits and moved off to have peep at the con-
demned men. This was not matter of idle curios-
ty but was regular part of our duty as the condi
ton of the mans neck and general physique guided
US in fixing the length of drop.
Young John Robert Miller was kept in the hos
ptal, as there only one condemned CELL and that
occupied by his uncle. We told that young
Miller had maintained very truculent air since he
was sentenced to death, but on the afternoon ar
rived he began to show signs of mental collapse. He
had often before yelled defiant threats against his
uncle, but his behavior became less rational
than
1t seemed to me that he had gone clean out of his
mind. My bed the same floor as the place
where he kept, and it little sleep had that
night. His screams and cries disturbed me through
all those dark hours and also excited at the
strange situation / in, it turned out of the
most wakeful nights of my life.
was glad when morning came and could be
free for time of those awful screams from the con-
demned man. The older man, might add, was
awaiting death with much more calmness
1t was, of course, still quite dark when had to
get up, and this coupled with the fact that had
never seen actual execution before combined in
creating feeling of strang uneasness within me. In
my fevered imaginings pictured all sorts of things
going wrong, but the calm, easy nonchalance of
BILLY" Ellington acted a tonic did not mean
that he anybody else should see anything in me
that could be construed showing the white feather
With an air of being perfectly familiar with
everything, if this my hundredth instead of
my first execution, went with him to the execution