Imight almost head this chapter, “My Critics,” for both press and public are constantly criticising my doings. The criticism is generally friendly, though often based on incomplete knowledge of the facts. Of the press-men I must say that they usually seem most kindly disposed, and certainly many of them go to great trouble to extract from me a few statements which they can spin out into an “interview.” As a rule I dislike these interviews, for I know that my employers very strongly object to any more sensationalism than is absolutely necessary being imported into the accounts of executions. Unfortunately, with many of the papers, sensationalism is the one thing needful, and when I meet with a really energetic reporter attached to such a paper my position is a very difficult one. If I say little or nothing in answer to his questions, he may spin a fearful and wonderful yarn out of his own head, and out of the gossip and rumours which seem to be constantly afloat, started, I imagine, by needy penny-a-liners. On the other hand, if I submit to the interview as the best way of keeping it within bounds, the “touches of colour” which the interviewer generally thinks it necessary to add, are pretty sure to land me in bother and misunderstanding.

In several instances statements which were calculated to seriously injure me professionally have been published; and though I believe they were inserted with no evil intent, I have been obliged to employ my solicitors to secure their contradiction.

The instance which annoyed me, perhaps, more than any other was the reporting of a supposed interview in the Essex County Chronicle. It was said to be from “an occasional contributor.” The interviewer in question tackled me in the hotel where the Sheriff pays the execution fee; entering the room immediately after I had been paid, and just as the Sheriff was driving off. He asked me two or three questions about private matters, which I answered truthfully and straightforwardly, though I was somewhat annoyed by the man and his manner. The “interview” which appeared quite shocked me. Several of the statements were utterly wrong, but what troubled me most was the following paragraph, which was quite at variance with the actual facts, and with the statements which I had made:—

“And what do your friends think of the profession you have taken up?” I asked.

“It killed my mother and brother,” he mournfully replied. “When Marwood died I was appointed in his place, and directly my mother knew of it she was taken ill. My father’s solicitor then wrote to the Home Office, informing the authorities of this. The result was that I gave up the position, and Binns got the appointment. My mother died soon afterwards, though, and then, when I saw the way in which Binns was going on, I came to the conclusion that he would not hold the place long, and I again wrote to the Home Office stating that my mother was dead and that there was nothing now to prevent my accommodating them if my assistance should be required. Soon after that I was engaged to hang two men at Edinburgh, and I have carried out nearly all the executions since then. My brother had married a girl with plenty of money, and his pride received a blow on my appointment. That was the cause of his death. He was a Liberal and in favour of abolishing capital punishment, but I am a Conservative through and through. Altogether I have buried my mother, two brothers, and two aunts within the last three years.”

This was a false and cruel paragraph, the actual facts with regard to the deaths of my relatives being as follows:—1. My aunts died before I took the office, or thought of doing so. 2. My mother died from cancer on the liver, from which she had been suffering for a long time before I applied for the post; and she died between the time of my first application and the time of second application, when I was appointed for the double execution at Edinburgh. 3. My brother died of low fever, after I had held the office of executioner for about four years.

I do not wish to deny that my choice of the calling of executioner was a disappointment and annoyance to my family; but to say that it caused, or hastened the death of any one of them is to say that which is not true. If I thought that it had really had any such disastrous effect, I hope I am not such a callous and hardened wretch as to make the matter the subject of discussion with a stranger.

One would almost have thought that such statements as the one extracted above would bear their refutation on their face, and that there would be no need to contradict them; but the matter was seriously taken up by the Daily News, which made it the subject of a leader, and other papers all over the country extracted from, or commented upon the matter in the Daily News.

Of course, I put the matter into the hands of my solicitors, who took steps to stop the original libel, but they were naturally unable to stop its circulation through the country.

Another affair which caused me much annoyance at the time arose in Hereford, from the greed for interesting and sensational “copy” shown by a member of the staff of the Hereford Times. He got up some sensational matter to the effect that after the execution of Hill and Williams I retired to a neighbouring hotel where a smoking concert was in progress, and there held a ghastly levee. The worst of this report was that it was based on some foundation of fact, and that a mere colouration of the report made a reasonable and perfectly innocent entertainment appear as if it was something shameful.

The actual facts were that after the execution I was in company with Alderman Barnet, Mayor of Worcester, and a detective sergeant, both of whom were personal friends of mine. With Alderman Barnet I was invited to a social evening held by some of his friends. It was a perfectly private party, and was decorously conducted in every way. When the Times representative appeared, as he was known to the gentlemen present, he was invited to join us, simply as a friend. The report of the party was much talked about at the time, and Sir Edwin Lechmere, M.P. for Hereford, made it the subject of a question in the House of Commons.

From time to time a very great number of incorrect and exaggerated statements have been made in the press with regard to almost every detail of my work, and I suppose that so long as the public have a love for the marvellous, and so long as press-men have treacherous memories or vivid imaginations, it will continue to be so. My enormous income is one of the subjects on which the papers most frequently get astray, and it has often been asserted that my earnings amounted to a thousand a year. I only wish that it might be so, if I could make it from an increase of fee rather than an increase in the number of executions, but the reader has in other places correct statements of what my income really amounts to. I never bear malice against my friends of the press for these little distortions of fact, for I know that they mean no harm, and on the whole they have always used me very well.

With regard to the public, their curiosity to see me is much greater than my desire to satisfy it. I have no wish to be followed about and stared at by a crowd, as if I were a monstrosity, and in many cases I have had to go to some trouble to baulk them. This I can do to a certain extent by travelling by other trains than the one I am expected by. In some cases where there are two or three railways into a town, one of which is the direct line from Bradford, I take the direct line to some local station, and there change into a train of another line or into some train running on some local branch line, and so arrive unobserved. At Newcastle, after the execution of Judge, there was a big and enthusiastic crowd waiting to see me and my assistant depart. There were one or two men in the crowd who knew me by sight, and they knew the train by which we were to travel, so they made a raid on the station, and in spite of the efforts of the railway officials and police to keep the place clear they burst through the barriers with a howl of exultation and filled the platform. The plan by which we evaded them was very simple. We walked over the river to Gateshead, and booked from there to Newcastle. Arriving by train in the midst of the people who were looking for us, we attracted no attention whatever, because the folks who knew me were near the entrance gates, expecting us to come into the station in the ordinary way. As we had our tickets for Bradford with us, we simply crossed the platform to our own train, and in due time steamed southward, leaving the disappointed crowd under the firm impression that we had not entered the station.

The first time that I went to Swansea there was a large crowd of people waiting to see me, but they were disappointed, for I had made a little arrangement which completely upset their calculations. It happened that I travelled from Shrewsbury to Swansea with a gentleman who is well known in the latter town. In the train we entered into conversation, and I found that his carriage was to meet him at the station. I therefore asked him if he could recommend me to a good hotel, and was delighted when he said that he would drive me to one, which was just what I wanted. He did not know who I was, and the little crowd that was watching never imagined that the executioner would be riding in their townsman’s carriage. Of course, I did not want to stay at the hotel, because I was to lodge in the gaol, but I thanked my friend for the lift, walked into the hotel for a glass of beer while he was driving away, and then walked up to the prison without anyone suspecting my errand.

Whenever I have been in actual contact with crowds in England, their attitude has been friendly. In Ireland such knots of people as may gather are usually the reverse. In England, if there is any sort of demonstration, it is a cheer; in Ireland it is hooting and groaning. But it is seldom, in England, that I meet with any personal demonstration. The crowds that assemble outside the gaols when executions are in progress, are interesting studies. They hail the hoisting of the black flag with a cheer or a groan, that indicates their opinion of the merits of the case. It is curious to notice how the sympathies of this section of the public lean one way or the other, often without any apparent reason. This thought occurred to me very forcibly at the executions of Israel Lipski and William Hunter, who were hanged within a few months of each other.

At Lipski’s execution the crowd was the largest I have ever seen, many of the people remained hanging about for hours. The excitement was intense, but there was no sympathy for the prisoner. There were many Jews in the crowd, and wherever they were noticed they were hustled and kicked about, and insulted in every imaginable manner; for the hatred displayed by the mob was extended from Lipski to his race. When the black flag was hoisted it was received with three ringing cheers. Altogether, the crowd showed the utmost detestation of the murderer. And yet his crime was no worse than the majority of murders, and there were many things connected with it, and with the circumstances of the miserable man’s life, both before and after, which I should have expected to excite some little sympathy; at any rate, amongst people in a similar station of life.

Hunter’s execution was the next but one to Lipski’s, and his crime was one which has always seemed to me about the most heartless I ever heard of. Hunter was a striker in a foundry by trade, but a tramp by choice. He left his wife and two children and went on tramp, eventually striking up a sort of partnership with a Scotch woman who had six illegitimate children. One of these, a little girl between three and four years of age, went tramping with them, and of course, the poor wee mite was utterly unfit for the exposure and the many miles of walking which they made her accomplish daily. Hunter and the woman were both cruel to the child, and carried their cruelty to such an extent that on one occasion at any rate, they were remonstrated with, and eventually turned out of a common lodging-house on account of their conduct. At last, one day after a long tramp, the little mite began to cry from weariness, and Hunter, to stop her crying, beat her with a switch. Later, for the same purpose, he thrashed her with a stick that he picked up in the road. Still later in the day he continued his ill-treatment until he had beaten the life out of the poor little creature. In justice to the man—or brute—it should be said that when he found that the child was insensible (it was really dead), he fetched water to bathe its poor battered head; and when he realised that it was dead he cut his own throat and very nearly killed himself—but these considerations seem very little extenuation for the harsh brutality of his conduct. One would have thought that the man who had thus heartlessly tortured to death a helpless child would have been execrated by all men; yet the crowd that assembled at Hunter’s execution wore quite a holiday air. There were some 1500 people, most of whom laughed and jested. When the flag was run up there was no demonstration, perhaps the Carlisle people are not demonstrative. However that may be, the contrasted conduct of the crowds at the two executions struck me forcibly; and though it is sad that men should rejoice at the death of a fellow-man, if the cheers had been given at Hunter’s death which greeted the death of Lipski, I think they would have been more natural and more English than light jests and laughter.