CHAPTER XII
The Press and the Public
I might 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.
CHAPTER XIII
Incidents and Anecdotes
As is always the case when a man attains any prominence or notoriety, a number of utterly groundless stories have got afloat about my doings and adventures. Others, which were originally founded on fact, have been so modified and altered that I do not recognise them when they come back to me again. Altogether I have been credited with being the hero of so many surprising adventures that I am afraid the few little incidents which have really occurred to me will seem tame by the side of the fictions.
One of the most striking incidents that ever occurred to me was on the journey from Lincoln to Durham, after executing Mary Lefley, in 1884. At Doncaster we changed from the Great Eastern to the Great Northern Railway. I looked out for a carriage with a vacant corner seat, and got into one containing three rough-looking men. When the train had started they began to talk amongst themselves, and to look at me, and eventually began to chaff me. Of course I pretended not to understand their allusions to the execution that morning, and was indignant at their supposing me to be an executioner, but they were confident that they were right, and began offering to bet amongst themselves as to which of them I should get first. I was glad to get to York, where I parted from their company. Two years afterwards I met the same three men under very different circumstances. They were at Carlisle, condemned to be executed for the Netherby Hall burglary, and I carried out the sentence of the law. Their names were Rudge, Martin, and Baker.
I always try to remain unknown while travelling, but there is a certain class of people who will always crowd round as if an executioner were a peep-show. On the journey above mentioned, after changing at York, I got into a carriage with a benevolent-looking old gentleman. A little crowd collected round the door, and just as we were starting a porter stuck his head into the window, pointed to my fellow-passenger, and with a silly attempt at jocularity said: – “I hope you’ll give him the right tightener.” The old gentleman seemed much mystified, and of course I was quite unable to imagine what it meant. At Darlington there was another little crowd, which collected for a short time about our carriage. Fortunately none of the people knew me, so that when the old gentleman asked them what was the matter they could only tell him that Berry was travelling by that train and that they wanted to have a look at him. The old gentleman seemed anxious to see such an awful man as the executioner, and asked me if I should know him if I saw him. I pointed out a low-looking character as being possibly the man, and my fellow-traveller said, “Yes! very much like him.” I suppose he had seen a so-called portrait of me in one of the newspapers. We got quite friendly, and when we reached Durham, where I was getting out, he asked for my card. The reader can imagine his surprise when I handed it to him.
This little story has been much warped and magnified, and has even been made the subject of a leading article which takes me to task for “glorying in my gruesome calling,” and shocking respectable people by giving them my cards.
Another little anecdote which has been greatly distorted is what I call the toothache story. It happened in 1887, when crossing from Ireland, that there was one of the passengers who was terribly ill with mal de mer and toothache combined. He was rather a bother to several travellers who were not sick, and who wished to enjoy the voyage, and he must have given a lot of trouble to the stewards. I think that one of the latter must have told him that I could cure him, for he came and begged me to tell him what was the best thing for his complaint. I admitted that I was in the habit of giving drops that would instantaneously cure both the toothache and the sea-sickness, but assured him that he would not be willing to take my remedy. Still he persisted, so I handed him a card, and as he was a sensitive man it gave his nerves a shock that was quite sufficient to relieve him of the toothache, and me of his presence for the rest of the voyage. As the card which I then used has often been mentioned in the newspapers, I give a fac-simile of it. The wording was in black, with the fern in green, and the border in gold. I now use a perfectly plain card.
A sad little incident in connection with the murder of Warder Webb by John Jackson will always remain in my memory. I had been to Strangeways Gaol once or twice before on duty, and Webb had always been my personal attendant during my residence, so that we were quite friendly. At the execution previous to Jackson’s – that of John Alfred Gell, in May, 1888 – we had two or three long chats, and Webb was most anxious that I should go to Manchester to spend a half-day or a day with him in the city, when he could get leave of absence. He hoped it would be a long time before they should see me there again professionally, but said that they would always be glad to see me if I were in Manchester on other business, and could call. Then, turning to the subject of executions, he began wondering who would be the next that I should have to go there for, and who would be the victim, and shaking his head sadly, he said, “A body never knows who will be next.” The poor fellow little thought that he would be the next victim, and that the very next time I visited Strangeways would be no friendly call, but a visit to avenge his own death.
Of course, my duties take me about the country a great deal, and I have met a great many interesting people in the course of my travels. As a rule, I do not make myself known unless I have some good reason for doing so, because I have no fancy for making myself into a cheap show. On one occasion I travelled from Coventry to Warwick with the reporter of one of the Coventry papers. He knew nothing of my identity, and does not seem to have recognised me at the execution; but while writing out his report the connection between the gentleman in the train and the executioner in the gaol seems to have dawned upon him, and he wrote the following, which amused me greatly when it appeared in his paper: —
After writing this report and describing the hangman’s features and dress, it dawned upon the writer for the first time that the description was that of a gentleman with whom he had travelled from Coventry to Warwick on the previous afternoon. On reflecting upon all the circumstances of the journey, he felt quite certain of the fact; and although amused at the thought of having travelled and conversed with an executioner without knowing it, he was a little chagrined that he had not given the conversation a “professional” turn, which he would have done had he been aware who his fellow traveller was. The incident is sufficient to show that persons travelling by rail occasionally get into singular company without having the slightest knowledge of the fact.
In 1887 when I had to go to Dorchester, to hang Henry William Young for the Poole murder, I stayed at Bournemouth, and took a room in a Temperance Hotel. During the evening I got into conversation with the landlady, who was much interested in the subject of executions, and who appeared to like to discuss it. She was decidedly “down on” Berry, “the hangsman,” and expressed herself very freely as to his character and disposition; amongst other pleasant things, saying that he was a man without a soul, and not fit to have intercourse with respectable people. Of course, I smilingly agreed with everything that she had to say, and chuckled quietly to myself about a little surprise that I had in store for her. The surprise came off at bed-time, when she handed me my bedroom candle, and in return I handed her my card. The good lady nearly fainted.
It is not often that I feel frightened, for I am pretty well able to take care of myself, but I once had a little adventure in the train, coming from Galway to Dublin, that gave me one or two cold shivers. It was at a time when Ireland was much disturbed by agrarian outrages, and I knew that amongst some of the lower classes there was a feeling of hatred against myself on account of my occupation. Of this I had an example when going down to Galway, and as it led up to, and somewhat prepared me for the other incident, I may as well mention it. My journey to Galway was undertaken for the purpose of hanging four men who were condemned to death for moonlighting. It was an exciting journey altogether, for four men who were in the same compartment as myself from Dublin to Mullingar got into an excited discussion upon some political subject, and just as we left Killucan they began to fight most violently, using their sticks and fists to such an extent that all their faces were soon covered with blood. As the train drew into Mullingar the fury cooled as quickly as it had begun, they all began to apologise to each other and wipe the blood from one another’s faces. At Mullingar I got out for a drink, to steady my nerves, for the fight at such close quarters had somewhat upset me, although I took no part in it. On the platform two villainously rough-looking characters spoke a few words to the men who had got out of my compartment and then followed me into the refreshment room, where they seemed anxious to make my acquaintance, and so forcibly insisted that I should have a drink with them, that I had to consent for fear of causing a row. They asked me where I was going, said that they were going to Galway, and in what seemed to me a peculiarly significant tone, asked me if I knew whether Mr. Barry, the hangsman, was really in the train or not. They followed me on to the platform like two shadows, and got into the same compartment of the train. All this made me feel rather uncomfortable, for though I was well armed, there is nothing in life that I dread so much as the possibility of having to kill a man in self-defence and of being tried, and possibly convicted, for murder. I was, therefore, very pleased when two plain-clothes men whom I knew belonged to the Royal Irish Constabulary, got into the other half of the carriage, which was one of those in which there are two compartments divided by a low partition. I do not know whether my two rough companions even noticed that there was anyone in the other half of the carriage, to which their backs were turned. Their conduct, indeed, seemed to show that they thought we were alone, but I could see that the R. I. C. men were regarding them with interest and taking note of every word they said. All the way from Mullingar to Athenry the two fellows plied me with questions, and tried by all means in their power to draw me into discussion, and the expression of opinion. I answered them as briefly as I could without being uncivil, but took care that they should not gain much solid information from my answers. At Athenry they shuffled into the far corner of the compartment, and in stage whispers, which they evidently thought I could not hear, argued as to whether I was “Barry” or not. One of them got quite excited, pointed out that I was an Englishman, that I came from the North of England, that there was no one else in the train that looked like an executioner, that my tale about being a poultry-buyer was “all a loie,” and finally that I had a scar on my cheek which “proved it intoirely, begorra!” The other fellow said that “shure the gintleman in the corner was a gintleman, and not a murtherin, blood-thirsty, blagyard of a hangman,” which opinion at last seemed to be shared by both. As we steamed into Galway I used my handkerchief, and then rested my hand on the window-ledge with the handkerchief hanging out. This was the signal arranged with my police escort, who were on the platform, and who managed to be just opposite the door when the train stopped. As I marched off amongst those strapping fellows, I looked round to see my two travelling companions gesticulating wildly, and abusing each other for having been deceived, and for having treated “the very blagyard we went to meet.” I never knew whether they had intended me any harm, but the constabulary men told me that they were two of the roughest characters in Galway.
The four men who were condemned to death were reprieved, one after the other, as the days fixed for their executions drew near, so that I was not required to carry out my painful duty after all. But I was kept waiting more than a week in Galway gaol, with nothing more lively to do than to read the newspapers, and to walk about in the dreary prison yard, because the governor did not consider that it would be safe for me to venture outside. I was heartily glad when the last reprieve arrived and I was free to return home. To avoid observation as much as possible, I took the midnight train, and as there were very few passengers I secured a compartment to myself, and made all snug for a sleep. I was not disturbed until we reached Mullingar, when I noticed a man who looked into my compartment, then walked the whole length of the train, and finally came into my compartment, although there were others in the train quite empty. He at once began to talk to me in a friendly sort of style, with a strong American twang, but I did not like his looks at all, so pretended to want to go to sleep. As I sized him up from my half-shut lids I set him down as a “heavy swell” Yankee. He wore a big slouch hat and cape coat, carried an elaborately silver-mounted handbag, and his coat pocket showed the unmistakable outline of a revolver. He plied me with all sorts of questions on Irish politics, asked me where I lived, what was my business, where I was going to stay in Dublin, and a host of other questions which I evaded as far as I decently could. I did tell him, amongst other things, that my name was Aykroyd, and that I lived in the North of England, but not very much beyond this. After a while he pulled out his revolver and commenced examining it in a careless sort of fashion. As I did not like this turn of affairs, I pulled out my own weapon, which was built for business and twice the size of the one carried by the stranger, and made a pretence of looking it over very carefully. The stranger asked me to let him examine my “gun,” but I told him that it was a weapon that I did not like to hand about for fear of accidents, and after a final look at the charges, I put it back into my coat pocket in such a position that it covered the stranger, and kept my finger on the trigger until we reached Dublin. The American tried to keep up a conversation all the way, but I was not very encouraging, and I thought that by the time we reached Dublin he would be heartily sick of my company. But when I got out of the station and was driving off to my hotel, I was surprised to find that he jumped on to the same car, and said he would go to the same hotel as I did. After having a wash I came down into the breakfast room and heard the American asking the waitress if she knew Mr. Berry, to which she replied that she did; and then if Mr. Berry was there that morning, to which she replied that she had not seen him. As a matter of fact she had not, and I slipped along the passage to tell her, as she went to the kitchen, that my name, pro tem, was Aykroyd. I found in the coffee room that there was a letter addressed to me, on the mantel-piece. The stranger was examining this, and asked me if I knew the hangman by sight. When it was nearly time to catch my boat the stranger still stuck to me, and at the last moment he suggested that we should have a drink together. We went to Mooney’s, where I was known to the bar-tender, to whom I tipped a vigorous wink as we went in, which showed him there was something in the wind. After ordering our drinks the American asked him if he knew Berry, the hangman, to which he truthfully replied that he did. The American then asked if he knew whether Berry had come from Galway by the night mail, adding “he was expected to travel by that train, but Mr. Aykroyd and myself came by it and we saw nobody like him, though I carefully looked along the whole train.” The bar-tender of course knew nothing, so we drank up, and I went out to my car, the American shaking hands with me and wishing me a pleasant voyage. I had run it rather close, and quick driving only just brought us to the quay in time for me to get aboard. As the ship swung out from the quay-side, a car, driven at red-hot speed, came dashing along, and the passenger, whom I recognised as my American, gesticulated wildly, as if he wanted the vessel to stop. But we swung out with steam and tide, and he drove some distance along the quay-sides wildly but vainly waving his hands.