FAMOUS EXECUTIONERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 31, 6 February 1937, Page 12 (Supplement)

FAMOUS EXECUTIONERS.

By ... , MICHAEL CORLEY

He caught tlic next train by Hie skin of his teeth, rend the sm:ill ails, all the way up, and finally arrived for the interview with precisely that feeling of inferiority which he knew to he the worst possible handicap. All the other applicants in the waitseemed to have new. smart suits of distinctive hues and patterns. Worst of all. having arrived last, lie was the last to be interviewed. A hundred thousand curses on uncontrolled terrier pups and on the girls in charge of them! Eventually his turn came. He was shown in by a pompous person ill a morning eotit and a bad temper, and was asked the routine questions; age, experience, references, and so on. It was sheer waste of time, he realised. Ho was only being interviewed for form's sake; one of the others had already been selected, of course. Ho could tell that his'guess was right from tho way tho temper of the person in the morning coat improved. Having at last reached the end of the list of applicants, and not having to take this oho seriously, he began to smile; thinking of his lunch, probably. The pompous one laid down his pencil and sat back. Allan prepared to leave. Vivisection would not be too had a. punishment for uncontrolled terrier pups, ho thought; still less for their coat spoke, again. "Mr. Saunders, you're engaged." Strange, but bo really had eaid it! Thero was absolutely no mistaking the

I I GRIM PERSONALITIES. I — J MAX WHO BEHEADED CHARLES I. Men appear to have become cxeeui tioners pretty much as they have become I shoemakers or bricklayers, soldiers or lawyer-;. In some cases the grim calling has been adopted from just those little trivial accidents and incidents that determine so many other affairs in life. For instance, Calcraft, who was for many years Newgate executioner, obtained the appointment from happening to go along Finsbury Square one miserably wet and cold morning, and, stopping for a moment, to speak with a man keeping a: coffee stall in the street. The stallkeeper was the Newgate executioner, and Calcraft was acquainted with him. 11l complained that he was very unwell and was getting feeble, and should soon have to give up his post as hangman. "Well, when you give it up, I'll take to it," said Calcraft, apparently not very seriously thinking of the matter. However, the Imngman did actually resign immediately after, and in doing so mentioned what Calcraft had said. The authorities in the city at once sent for the volunteer, and, finding him a suitable man, appointed him there and then. From a similar acquaintanceship Gregory Brandon, one of his early predecessors, seems to have stepped into the office. He had known the man who had been executioner to the City of London for about fifty years, and during the latter part of the" time had helped him in his duties.

Derrick has left his name perpetuated in the kind of crane now in coimion use, a machine, apparently named because, like the hangman, it hauled bodies up by .1 rope. Derrick fought under the Karl of Essex in Spain, and had there been condemned to death for a disgraceful outrage. Essex pardoned him and set him to work to hang a score of so of his men. who had been sentenced, little dreaming that he was thus sparing the life, of his own executioner. When, however, the time came for Essex to lay his head upon the block for rebellion, Derrick was the man who had to wield ihe axe. His predecessor was one named Bull, who is the earliest of whom we have any record among city hangmen. First came .Bull, then Derrick; next Brandon, and he was succeeded by his son, who stepped into his father's shoes just as young men are apt to do in more respectable careers. Brandon tho younger—Richard Brandon—is generally" supposed to have been the masked executioner who struck off the head of Charles I. There were two of them on the scafTold in Whitehall, but Brandon was the city executioner, and is thought to have been the one who dealt the blow. Great pains were taken to conceal his identity, but, like a great many others of his horrible craft, he seems to have had a certain pride in his profession, and could not keep his secret. He is said to have had, by way of perquisite, a handkerchief out of the king's pocket and an orange stuck full of. cloves, and lie boasted that immediately after the execution he received £30 in half-crowns. !

Xext to Richard Brandon came Dunn, who was followed by the notorious Jack Ketch, who executed Lord Russell and the Duke of ifonmouth. It seems to have been the man's real name, and it caught tlie public fancy, as so appropriate to the office that almost to our own day it