PUBLIC EXECUTIONS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 427, 11 May 1850, Page 41

PUBLIC EXECUTIONS.

The executions of the Mannings, the 11 Bermondsy murderers," has drawn from Charles Dickens a letter, addressed to the Times, on the subject of Public Executions. The picture which he gives of the demoralization which such scenes lead to, will, we hope, attract the attention of the proper authorities, and that such nuisances may be put a stop to :— Sir— l was a witness of the execution at Horsemonger-lane this morning. I went there with tbe intention of observing the crowd gathered to behold it; and I had excellent opportunities of doing so, at intervals all through the night, and continuously from daybreak until after the spectacle was over. I do not address you on the subject with any intention of discussing the abstract question of capital punishment, or any of the arguments of its opponents or advocates. I simply wish to turn this dreadful experience to some account for the general good, by taking the readiest and most public means of adverting to an intimation given by Sir George Grey in the last session of Parliament, that the Government might be induced to give its eupport to a measure making the infliction of capital punishment a private solemnity within the prison walls (with such guarantees for the last sentence of the law being inexorably and surely administered as should be satisfactory to the public at large), and of most earnestly beseeching Sir G. Grey, as a solemn duty which he owes to society, and a responsibility which he cannot for ever put away, to originate such a I believe that a sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd collected at that execution this morning could be imagined by' no man, and could be presented by no fceathen land under the sun The horrors of the gibbet, and of the crime which brought the unhappy murderers to it, faded in jny mind before the atrocious bearing l2r o^ 8 ' amda m d 1<m «*>age of the assembled spectators! When I came upon the scene at midnight, the shrillness of theories and howls that were raised from time totime,-denoting that they came from a concourse of boys and girls already assembled in fche best places, made my blood run cold. As the night went on, schreeching and laughing, in Btrong chorus of parodies on nem-o melodies, with substitutions of 'Mrs Manning' for 'Susannah,' and the like, were added to these. When the day dawned, thieves, low prostitutes, ruffians, and vagabonds of every description, flocked on to the ground with every variety of offensive and foul behaviour. Fighting, faintings, whistlings, imitations of Punch, brutal jokes, tumultuous demonstrations of indecent delight when swooning women were dragged out of the crowd by the police, with their dresses disordered, gave a new .zest to the general enterlainm ® nt * „?}* c*e * tne BUn roße brightly—as it did —it gilded thousands upon thousands of upturned faces, so inexpressibly odious in their brutal mirth, or callousness, that a man had cause to feel ashamed of tbe dress he wore, and to shrink from himself, as fashioned in the image of the Devil. When the two miserable creatures were turned quivernig into the air, there was no more emotion, no more pity, no more thought that two immortal souls had gone to judgment, up more restraint in any of the previous obscenities, than if the name of Christ had never been heard in this world, and there were no belief among men but that they perish like tbe beasts. * *

I have seen, habitually, «ome«f the worst sources of general contamination and corruDtion in tbw country, and I think there are not many phases of London life that could surprise me. I am solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity could devise to be done in this city, in tne same compass of time, could work such turn as one public execution, and I aland astounded and appalled by the wickedness it exhibits. Ido not believe that any community can prosper where such a scene of horror and demoralization as -was enacted outside Horse-monger-Jane Gaol is presented at the very doors of gopd citizens, and ib passed by, unknown or forgotten. And when, in our prayers and thanksgivings for the season, we are humbly expressing before God our desire to remove the moral evils of the land, I would ask your reader* to consider whether it is not a time to think of this one, and fco root it out. I am, sir, your faithful servant, Chablbß-Dickbn«, '

I Libertiks to the Jaws.— A Jew pnrchased landed property lately in Bohemia. On. appeal to the Emperor, an old, law 0/ Maria Theresa against the Jews was. referred" to, hat the Emperor replied—" Our times are riot'lHto those of Maria Theresa, and so a Jew cvuihold land. The Government seems in eac&eat Ja carrying out the Jewish emandpktidn-granteil I daring the revolution.— JetcisA ChronicU.