Mrs Dyer Hanged.

Hastings Standard, Issue 92, 12 August 1896, Page 3

Mrs Dyer Hanged.

SCENE ON THE SCAFFOLD

A gloomier morning than it was on the appointed day at Newgate could not be well imagined. It rained continuously, and the atmosphere was heavy and depressing, a fitting accompaniment to the ghastly work on hand, for Mrs Dyer, the Eeading baby-far-mer, was to be hanged. Mrs Dyer had risen early ; indeed, she could hardly be said to have slept at all during her last night. All through she had rolled in her sleep, muttering and sobbing. Once or twice she started up and gazed intently upon her attendants, relapsing afterwards into a state of unconsciousness, only to start up again some minutes later. When the hour arrived at "which it was permissible for her to get up she rose and dressed herself with unfaltering hands, and when the chaplain arrived she wore the clothes in which she was attired in the dock —the clothes she had worn since her sentence. During her incarceration in Newgate she had spoken frequently of the crimes for which she was condemned, admitting the justice of her sentence, and thanking those who had minis-tered to her wants in prison. And within the last day or two she had paid attention to the ministrations .of the chaplain, and it is no exaggeration to say that she was reverent and devout in her bearings. It was only a few minutes past eight o'clock when the under-sheriff and the other officials of the gaol put in their appearance at the gaol. the executioner, who, with his assistant Wilkinson, had remained in the prison during the night, were also on hand at that hour, tested the scaffold carefully, and certified that all was in readiness. Some few minutes before nine o'clock Billington was brought into ' the cell which the wretched woman had occupied since her arrival at Newgate the night before. It was the same as that in which Scaroan, the Whitechapel murderer had spent his last days—the ordinary condemned cell at Newgate. To reach it Mrs Dyer, on her arrival from Holloway, had to pass over the newly-made graves of the three convicts who had died but twentyfour hours before. At the appearance of Billington, who carried in his hands the strap with which to pinion the arms, Mrs Dyer, wearing her gown only, and with her hair twisted up ball fashion at the back of her head, leaving her neck quite free, suddenly collapsed. She had made but a poor pretence at breakfast, being even then faint and ill, but a3 the last moments of her life were at hand, all the self-composure which she had maintained so well daring her incarceration left her, and she had to be supported by the fpnialg -warders while her arms were fastened. This was but the work | of a moment, and almost immediately

:"ie procession Iwd set out for the :-c"iffoLL The col! shf> occupied was but a few pace*! distant from the shed in which the List iinal work was to be performed, but even across this short

distance the condemned woman had to be carried by the warders. Indeed she seemed altogether unconscious now of what was taking place. Almost within a minute she was under the beam, still supported by the warders, and while Billington's assistant strapped her dress round her legs, Biilington himself drew the white cap over her face and adjusted the noose. The chaplain, w : ho had proceeded the condemned woman to the cell, was still reading the burial service, when at a signal from the under-sheriff, the hangman pulled the lever, the drop fell, and Mrs Dyer was dead. She weighed fifteen stone, and her neck was broken by a fall of about five feet.