The Shropshire Examiner and all round the Wrekin advertiser. — 1877-04-13 (Wenlock, Shropshire, England)

SCENFS AT EXECUTIONS.  Within about a score of years have occurred at least four sights of quite as painful a nature as that which happened at Armley Gaol on the 3rd April. At the execution of the Soho murderer, Eonsfield, at Newgate, on March 31st, 1850, which took place amid the pealing of the bells of the Tendon churches in celebration of the peace just concluded nith Russia, tOe wretched man, by extraordinary muscular efforts, raised himself to the soaffolet three times after the drop fell, and was as many times pushed off by Oalcraft sod the prison officials, and had to be held off until life was extinct Just ten years later, within three days, a 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 Calctaft seized her from beneltb, and there held her. In Jul-y, 180, a man named Parriar Carr was decapitated at Dublin on account of the nun, tumidly long drop. And only last year, at an execution by Marwood at Bristol, the ylprit's fee* touched he ground when the drop fell. aha he bad to be held up hy the governor of the gaol with his walking stick in order that the extreme sentence of the law might be carried into effect. These CBAOS are sufficient to show that various hangmen—and three are here instanced- may be so 'Artless as to cause needless suffering to the Condemned; but the only recent instance of a similar scene to that at Armley was furnished at Durham &boat twelve years ago, and, strange to say, was the fault of the same ex, cutioner as on Tuesday officiated. Matthew Atkinson was sentenced to death on March 4th, 11165, at the Durham Assizes, for the efure.er of his w•fe, and the execution was appointed to take place on the morning of March 10th. A moment alter the clock struck eight, the culprit mounted the vca; old, being accompanied by Askern, the executioner, ted the usual officials. When the drop fell the rope snapjf,3 clo, to the noose, and the crowd—for those were the clays of public executions- set up a loud shoot of sup:stn.-4e. As my be imagined, the excitement amongst the multitude which had assembled to witness the execution was tuo,t intense. The prisoner fell through the drop, a distance of 15 feet, and it was thought that, if not killed, Ice mast at all events be considerably injured by the fall. Great anxiety was felt as to the fate of the prisoner, and the feeling seemed to be universal that, atter such a terrible occurrence, his life ought to be spared. About twenty minutes afterwards a workoo,n came on the scaffold and replaced the drop, and soon f ter tee hangman reappeared, and, amidst shoats iitai time, attached anew rope to the beam. A few miuutes later the condemned man a second time ascended the eccffold with an undaunted step, apparently nothing the we-se for the terrible fall he had re,eived, the only effect visible being a livid mark around his throat where the rope had been placed. The deadly pallor which had overspread his features when he mounted the scaffold on the tint occasion had, however, disappeared, and ha paced himself beneath the drop without assistance, 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 Atktrisun had reamed to exist, hut loud cries of " Mulder, mutes: ' " were raised by the crowd as the drop again fell.  Although the Home Secretary said in the finese that he was not prepared to suggest any alteration in the law, we (Dail!, News) trust that he will not dismiss the question from his mind altogether without considering whether some 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, many persons who contend that this is one of the advantages of tile 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 ot,e, it is argued, if he were under sentence of death, would, if allowed his ehoiee, prefer to be shot than to be hanged. Andre begged to be shot, and Washington, 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 for any death rather than hanging. . But in all these and other such cases the victims objected to the one particular mode of punishment because it was that assigned to batm criminals of the ordinary kind. They would have asked to be banged rather than put to death in any other way if, as has been the case in sows countries, hanging wet e 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 front the mere associations of the punishment, irrespectice of the crime, it might he argued that there have been men enouA of the noblest char tcter 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 punish moot is to be objected to partly on the sama grounds as those which have made public opinion condemn the hanging of men in chains and the executions in front of a g.tol before a roaring crowd. The objection is site founded on considered°ns of pubic decency and natural feeling. Added to these, however, has now come the doubt, made active for ti.t moment by the recent scone 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.