THE MARCH TO THE GALLOWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9220, 24 November 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MARCH TO THE GALLOWS.

Extraordinary indifference seems to have been manifested by a murderer named Dan Lyons, who was executed several days ago in New York. The evening before his execution he unconcernedly lighted a cigar, and, strolling out into the courtyard of the gaol, approached and inspected the gallows. He laid his hands on the upright beams, and pushed one and then the other, as if testing their stability. Ho felt tin thickness of the rope, Ho measured with his eye the weight of the pieces of iron constituting the drop, and critically remarked that he thought the weight not sufficiently heavy for him. Early next morning he again had a look at the scaffold. He maintained this demeanour to the end, and the most effective consolation that was afterwards offered to his widow was that he died "game." Some time before his execution Lyons was questioned by a reporter about the feelings he supposed he would have just before the sentence of death was carried out. In answer to a question as to what seemed to him as likely to be the most trying moment, lie replied—"The walk to the gallows. Or, no, say perhaps the moment when the guard comes to your cell to take you out. That, I think, would perhaps be the worst minute. Man, just think of it yourself. Hero you have had life, and perhaps had some fun out of it. You've been convicted and been in a cell for a long time. That's been a great change, but after a while you get a little used to it, and then, just as you are getting used to it and hoping—hoping all the time that somethingwill turn up to get you off, the last, day comes. If you've got any heart at all you must be stirred up; you might call it rocky. Every little noise frightens you, and then you must go down even though you do not show it while you are waiting. Then the warder or somebody comes, and the blow is struck out at you. What is it but an invitation to come out of your cell and start on a last walk, the last time to use your legs, the last time to look on another man's face ? Why, I've sat here and tried my best to think what would be my feelings then. I know I would feel that it was the end of all, and that my death would come in a couple of minutes or so, but what else I'd feel I can't tell. Sometimes I get the idea that after the shock of the command to get ready to walk to the scaffold tho rest is pretty near a blank. That is, I feel it would probably be so in my case. I don't believe I realise much in going from my cell to the place where I would die." " But after got to the scaffold, what do you imagine would bo tho sensation?" " I give it up. Of course, if a fellow's a regular tough, and has gone all tlm .gh his life with a pistol in his pocket ready to ba: g anybody and everybody who crossed his path, I suppose he might have nerve er.ough to be tough to tho last, and die game. That's been his training. He has known all chances he has run of getting jugged, and having a rope put around his neck ; and I suppose there are men who, when it comes right to the last, can preserve their balance and go off so coolly that their pals will eay, ' He died like a good 'un.'"