The Warwickshire Herald. — 1887-09-01 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

LIPSKI AND NEWGATE.  THE interest which has been excited by the recent trial and execution of Lipski, has led many people to inquire curiously, perhaps, into the working of our criminal law as it affects the condemned murderer, and we, therefore, give a few sketches of the last scenes in the life of one who, with malice aforethought," took away another life, and paid the penalty with his own. It is seldom that a Jew in London brings himself into such criminal prominence as to incur the uttermost penslty of the law. A Honndsditch walking-stick polisher gained a notoriety and an amount of morbid popular interest scarcely to be equalled by the cessation of a Ministry or the sudden dissolution of a Parliament. That a Polish Jew of no very interesting character should take upon himself the responsibility of a mean, contemptible, and hideous murder might surely rest as a matter between himself, his conscience, and the hangman. This, however, was not so ordained; for, ever busy, the Pall Nall Gazette bursts out with: "Lipski is innocent Lipski must 71 ot be hanged ; Bis-Millah ! The oracle Stead has spoken "—and the country must be paralysed with anxious expectation as to the fate of the wretched stick varnisher, who, with his tongue in his cheek, carefully tears up his almost completed confession, and accepts the homage of Mr. Stead, his solicitor, and a peculiarly impressionable public. What do we find in this case worthy of the ebullition that has been shown 7 This wretched Polish Jew steals a march on a delicate woman, who even at that has not the advantage of any sort of protection, lying helpless alone in bed. The crawling murderer has not, on his own confession, the Tarquin.  like excuse of lust; bit, for the very meagre chance of a few stray shillings, he cold-bloodedly locks the door, throttles, maims, and poisons his victim. There was a time in the history of Houndsditch when the perpetrator of such a crime would have found a speedy resting-place amongst the curs and mongrels festering in the adjacent pond. Such a condition of affairs can scarcely be tolerated in an era of cultivation and advanced thoughtfulness. Stead, of the Pall Mall Gazette, a busy solicitor, and an impressionable rabbi, discover something childlike and bland in the expre-sion of the young, clear, open countenance of the condemned man. Mr. Wills makes allusion in his powerful play of (Uric: I. to Judas Iscariot having a clear blue eye and a fair face; but Mr. Stead knows better, and the pseudo corpse has a week to pose as a possible martyr. It is all over now, and surely the contemptible and revolting farce of a culprit being turned into the " big gooseberry" of a newspaper's silly season ought to end the continual upheaval of garbage by the Pall Mall Gazette. On the morning of Monday, at eight o'clock, the bell of St. Sepulchre's tolled out the dull thud of a funeral service; under the immediate walls of the vim prison a crowd that might even now vie with their predecessors of Tom Noddy's time, has gathered together and whiled away the time in horse-play, coarse badinage, and other forms of frolicsome brutality; thus occupying the time to the running up of the black flag, the flying of which is the signal for burst after burst of applause and cheers. Inside the gaol all is quiet and solemn; the various contingents necessary to be present upon such an occasion are mustered at their several meeting-places Mr. Berry, with a dapper manner indicating orders executed with neatness and despatch," makes little or no fuss with his subject. Before the last office, that of pinioning, is submitted to, the final question is put to the culprit by the interpreter, in answer to which the fair, mild-eyed, harmless-looking young man (now terribly aged and haggard, with a death-like shade infusing itself across his face) answers, "I alone am guilty." Tolerably calm, in fact, much calmer than many taking part in the "ceremony "—notably the sheriffs and the rabbi—permitting the gentle support of a couple of warders, Lipski walks the tortuous corridor to the place of execution. There is in the arrangement of the service of the Jewish church a certain amount of considerate decency that would  I f -04 i 4.\ ~.'y ill /7 , 4. - --' -:•\) • - p* # A --. „P_----; r v 7,,A, fit ix-,7 , 7 , _,,, . . // ' .../,',„.)fr _0747-f , /,,, ~- -, - • "- • 1.-