[If you watched Monday’s post on the Exploding Judases, you’ll remember that I said I felt like a witness at a public hanging. This is a very different take on capital punishment which seems much more about the executed than the executioner. In it’s own odd way this seems to define death with dignity. SB SM]
Today’s selection — from Executioner: Pierrepoint by Albert Pierrepoint. A story from Albert Pierrepoint, Britain’s official executioner, whose work was carried out most often by hangings:
“In a very short time the Governor of H.M. Prison, Winson Green, Birmingham, wrote to ask if I was free to take an engagement as assistant executioner for a prisoner whom he was holding, and I accepted. I soon checked that it was my Uncle Tom who was to act as Number One, and arranged to travel with him to Birmingham. When we met his appointed assistant at the prison, my uncle came to an arrangement with him that I should do the actual work. It made no difference to the assistant, who attended and took his fee in any case. But it did advance the close liaison between my uncle and myself as working partners.
“At this stage in my life I had no particularly strong opinions on the efficacy of capital punishment as a deterrent. I suppose I conventionally accepted the line that it worked. But, much later, when I came to reflect on the problem in depth, my mind often went back to the details of this my first execution in England. For it seemed to show that a prisoner could be to all outward appearances unshaken by the prospect of his death. Put it down to his courage, his fatalism, lack of sensitivity, or, as some people far from the actual scene have often said, the brutal stupidity of the man about to die: the fact remained that this man met his death jauntily. And he was by no means unique. I came to experience much the same attitude in many other condemned men. The thought that kept occurring to me later was that the existence of the death sentence had not deterred them, and the immediate prospect of death had not consumed them with terror. Possibly the thought of the noose which hanged them deterred others, but the actual execution inspired respect for the man rather than revulsion. And if such an execution had been held in public, witnesses would have felt sympathy for the man’s dignity rather than satisfied recognition of society’s vengeance — which is not what the theory of capital punishment preaches.
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| Albert Pierrepoint |
“I shall call the prisoner Gerald Hutchins. His offence was grave enough. He had been convicted of the killing of a mother of four young children. It was a love-affair murder, and the moment of passion had to be paid for. Sentence of death was pronounced. As a character, the prisoner aroused no disgust among the prison officers, who all called him Gerry, and it was through their friendly interest in him that I learned one of the details about the last day of his life which always impressed me.
“My uncle and I arrived together at the prison, and we had just sat down in the lodge at the main gate when the noise of someone banging loudly on the knocker echoed towards us. The officer on the gate opened up, and let in a group of people. They were shown to a waiting-room on the opposite side of the gate lodge. When the officer came back to us he said, ‘That is Gerry’s sister with some of his relations.’
“As their stay with him drew to an end, Gerry realised that it was up to him to put their minds at rest as best he could — it is surprising how often, in these circumstances, it is the dying man who has to comfort his mourners.
“‘Now I don’t want you to worry about me,’ he said. ‘Don’t crucify yourselves in the morning, waiting for me to go. And don’t make too much of it afterwards. Don’t send the house into mourning.
‘At eight o’clock in the morning, I want you to get hold of the blind, and draw it down, but not let it stay down. Just let the blind flick back again, and say, “Poor old Gerry. He’s gone.”’
Gerry’s family went away, and my uncle and I got on with our preparations for his execution. When the Governor visited him that evening Gerry spoke lightly to him: ‘I should like eggs and bacon for my breakfast, sir, please. Not one egg and bacon, eggs and bacon, because I am going on a long journey, and I am going to be hungry.’
“Next morning we were awoken at six by a prison officer bringing in hot cups of tea. It was a chilly dawn, and I was sipping my tea with the steam warming my face when I heard a great joyous voice singing. The sound came echoing through the stone prison in an unearthly fashion that makes me tingle now whenever I recall it. It would not be so remarkable today, when radios are commonplace in prison and there are even set hours for television. But any music in a gaol at that time was extraordinary, almost portentous, and when it came on that execution morning, very clear and resonant as it bounced along the walls of corridors and cells, it seemed to me uncanny. The voice was firm and free, and it was singing a song of the day:
Sally’s come back,
Sally’s come back,
And she’s living down our alley,
Although she’s been away
For many a day,
Sally
Is just as sweet and pally…
“’Sally’s come back and brought the sunshine home … ‘ The song bounced on down the prison alleys. ‘Who’s that?’ I said to the officer who had brought me my tea. ‘That’s Gerry,’ he said.
“Gerry sang on, for much of the morning that was left to him. There were only two hours to go. When my Uncle Tom and I went into the execution chamber to make the last arrangements and adjustments on the scaffold, only one wall separated us from the singer. He had a voice, and a spirit, to be appreciated. At a few minutes before eight we were waiting outside his cell. We could hear him joking with his guards. The Sheriff and the Governor arrived with their party, gave us the signal, and moved immediately into the execution chamber. We went into the cell, and Gerry turned round and laughed as we strapped his wrists.
“We moved towards the scaffold. Before he set his foot on the drop, Gerry stopped and turned towards the group of officials who were to witness his death. ‘Be good, everybody,’ he said. ‘And thank you for all your trouble.’ Then he walked on to the drop.
“And so he died. And one of the witnesses — I did not pause to consider who — was, I suppose, regarding me critically to assess my coolness and competence as a novice in executing the sentence of death. As we took Gerry down I was hoping that his sister was taking all the tragedy of this sad day with the resignation he had asked of her: the blind had been drawn; she had let the blind flick back. Poor old Gerry. He was gone.”