The Forest of Dean Examiner : — 1877-04-13 (Blakeney, Gloucestershire, England)

SCENE'S AT EXECUTIONS.  Within about a score of years have occurred at least four sights of quite as painful a nature as that whicb happened at Armley (Awl on the 3rd April. At the execution ot the Soho murderer, Boustieln, at Newgate, on March :hot, 1855, which took place amid the pealing of the bell. of the London churches in celebration of the peace just concluded nith Russia, the wretched man, by extraordinary muscular efforts, raised himself to the scaffold three times after the drop fell, and was as many times pushed off by Oalaraft and the prison officiala, and had to be held off until life was extinct. Just ten years later, within three days, • woman named Ashford, executed at Exeter for the murder of her husband, similarly managed to get her feet on the scaffold after the bolt was pulled, and was not killed until Calcraft imbed her from beneath, and there held her. In Jll4, 1870, • man named Patrick Carr was decapitated at Dublin on account of the enormously long drop. And only last year, at an execution by Marwo,gt at Inistol, the selprit's feet touched the ground when the drop fell. at n he had to he held up the governor of the gaol with hie walking stick in enter that the extreme sentence of the law might be carried into effect These cases are sufficieut to show that various hangmen—sand three are here instanced- may best castless as to cause needless sufferiug to the condemned; but the only recent instance of a similar eeene to that at Armley was furnished at Durham about twelve years ago, and, strange to say, was the fault of the same lutioner as 011 Tuesday officiated. Matthew Atkinson woe sentencad to death on March 4th, 1865, at the Durham Assizes, for the murder of his wife, and the execution was appointed to take place on the morning of March 111th. A moment after the clock struck eight, the culprit mounted the scaffold, being accompanied by Astern, the executioner, and the usual officials. When the drop fell the rope snapped close to the noose, and the crowd—for those were the days of public execution.- set up a loud shout of applause. An may be imagined, the excitement amongst the multitude which had assembled to witness the exeution was moot intense. The prisoner fell through the drop, a distance of 15 feet, smd it was thought that, if Oct killed, he must at all @yenta be considerably injured by the fall. Great anxiety was felt or to the fate of the prisoner, and !be feeling seemed to be universal that, after ouch a terrible occurrence, his life ought to be spored. About twenty minutes afterwsrds a workm.en came nu the scaffold and replaced the drop, and Bore alter tln hangman reappeared, and, amidst shouts and eon,. tions,attached • new rope to the beam. A few minutes later the condemned man a eecond time ascended the scaffold with an undaunted step, apparently nothing the worse for the terrible fall be had received, the only effect ,isible being • livid mark around his throat where the rope had been placed. The deadly pallor which had overspread his feature, when he mounted the scaffold on the hest occasion had, however, disappeared, and he placed himself beneath the drop without sasistance, and seemed anxious to give the executioner as little trouble as possible Astern then performed his office with great celerity, and in less than a minute Atkinson had ceased to exist, hut load cries of " Mulder, mut die ' " were raised by the crowd as the drop again fell. . Although the Home Secretary said in the Reese that he was not prepared to suggest any alteration in the law, we (Doily :Yens) trust that he will not dismiss the question from his mind altogether without considering whether 110t00 alteration might not be an improvement. The hanging system has undeniably a great deal that is barbarously hideous and revolting about it. There are, we are well aware, mans, persons who contend that this is one of the advantages of the system, that its brutal and disgusting character carries : a deeper shame with it, and so acts as an additional punishment and an additional deterrent. Any one, It is argued, if he were under sentence of death, would, if allowed his choice, prefer to be shot then to be hanged. Andre begged to be shot, and Washing. toot, against the advice of Hamilton, refused to grant his prayer. Wolfe Tone asked to be shot, and committed suicide in order to avoid the shame of being hanged. Emmett begged felt. any death rather than hanging. But in all these and, other such cases the victims objected to the one parr.cular mode of punishment because it was that assigned to base criminal-, of the ordinary kind. They would have asked to be hanged rather than put to death in any other way if, as has been the case in some coun' ries, hanging were the fate reserved for prisoners of the higher and nobler order. It inflicts no additional shame or degradation on a common murderer that he dies as all common murderers die. Indeed, if the shame came from the mere associations of the punishment, irre. 'peelve of the crime, it might be argued that there have been men enotkh of the noblest charteter and the purest aims put to death by hanging to make the drop and the noose seem far too good for the common murderer, to whom alone we devote them in our milder times. The Present system of capital punithinent is to he objected to partly on the same grouuds as those which have made public opinion condemn the hanging of men in chains and the event. Omni in front of a gaol before a roaring crowd. The objection is me founded on conaiderations of public) decency and natural feeling. Added to these, however, has now come the doubt, made active for the moment by the recent scene at Leeds, and put too carelessly away by the Home Secretary—the doubt whether there are not other systems of capital punishment less liable to interruption, accident, and bungling, than that at present in use in these countries.