DRESSED FOR THE SCAFFOLD

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 220, 13 June 1936, Page 24

DRESSED FOR THE SCAFFOLD

Old-Time Executions

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries our method of executions was most brutal. There was the long ride of the criminal iu an open cart, with his coffin by his side, either to Tyburn or to the spot where he committed the murder. The cart was stopped under the gallows,. the rope was fastened round the criminal's neck, the car-man gave the horse a lash, and the poor wretch was left swaying to and fro, kicking. If he had friends • hey would try to shorten his agony by hanging on to his legs, and beating his breast —a shocking sight. But hanging in those days was regarded as a. holiday spectacle, iu which we find the lower class took great interest, and evinced much sympathy with the deceased. For instance. Claude Duval, rbe celebrated highwayman, lay in state at the Tangier Tavern in St. Giles' in a room hung with black cloth, the bier covered with scutcheons and with eight wax candles burning around. He was buried by torchlight, and was followed to Coveut Garden Church by a numerous train of mourners, mostly women. Misson, French writer who visited England in the reign of William 111, says:—

“He that is bang’d or otherwise executed first takes care to get himself

shav'd and handsomely drest, either in mourning, or in the dress of a bridegroom. This done, he sets his friends to work to get him leave to be bury’d, and to carry his coffin with him, which is easily obtain’d. When the suit of cloaths, 'or nightgown, his gloves, hat, perriwig, nosegay, coffin, flannel dress for his corps, and all those things are brought and prepared, the main point is taken care of—his mind is at peace, and then he thinks of his conscience. Generally he studies a speech which he pronounces under the gallows, and gives in writing to the sheriff or the minister that attends him in his last moments, desiring that it may be printed. Sometimes the girls dress iu white, with great silk scarfs, and carrybaskets full of flowers and oranges, scattering these favours all the way they go. But to represent things as they really are, I must needs own that, if a pretty many of these people dress thus gail.v, and go to it with such an air of indifference, there are many ol hers that go slovenly enough and with dismal phizzes. I remember one day I saw in the park a handsome girl, very well dressed, that was then iu mourning for her father, -who had been hanged but a mouth before at Tyburn for false coinage. So many countries, so many fashions.”