DEATH OF THE PUBLIC EXECUTIONER.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7389, 15 February 1902, Page 3 (Supplement)

DEATH OF THE PUBLIC EXECUTIONER.

Mr William Billington, whose death I see reported as the result of a chill caught at the execution of a whilom friend, one McKenna, at Manchester, is the only member of the honourable profession of public executioners to die in office since the century began, and lie was the fourth in the line of succession to John Calcraft, -who was appointed in 1828. He began business at the age of eight-and-twenty, and continued in practice for no less than 43 years, his last operation taking place in 1871.

He then retired, and left us finally in HS79. William Marwood, who succeeded him, had the shortest career, dying in 18S3. Edward Berry, who came next, had a higher notion of "his functions than had. ob/taine.'l among his predecessors. He signed himself "Executioner of England.*' He also did more than any of theni for the ease and comfort of the patient. Marwood used to chalk a. circle on the drop, in which he would insist that the patient should accurately place his feet. He meant well, no doubt, but details on such occasions may be easily overdone. Berry settled all the details before the patient came on the scene. He was the inventor of the scientific long drop, and he further smoothed the passage to eternity by a mechanical arrangement which prevented the trap doors from flying- back, and striking the passenger as he passed through them. If he had only been as discreet as he was clever Billington would have achieved the appointment in 1592. Billington proved a blameless operator, and he has left a son, who appears to be quite ready to fill his father's shoes and fully competent to do so. James Billington declared that he never hanged anybody with greater satisfaction than he did Dr. Neil Cream, whom he believed to his dying day to have been "Jack the Ripper." Cream did all he could to delay the execution, and Billington, becoming impatient, suddenly pulled the fatal bolt. As he did so he distinctly heard Cream say, "I am Jack ," and believed that in another second he would have Certainly we never heard of the confessed he was "Jack the Ripper." "Ripper" after Cream's death.