THE LAST MOMENTS OF MURDERERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10425, 24 April 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE LAST MOMENTS OF MURDERERS.

EXPERIENCE OF THE NEWGATE

CHAPLAIN. Out of the storehouse of his unique and extensive experience of prisons and criminals the chaplain of Newgate, the Rev. 6. P. Merrick, has related some grimly interesting incidents to a representative of Cassell's Saturday Journal.

Referring to the last moments of the condemned, Mr. Merrick remarked

" The last duty is a very trying one, and I may tell you that most of the men and women by whom 1 have stood at the scaffold have looked into my eyes with the last look they ever took on earth. People who are about to be executed nearly always—l might say invariably—look upon tho chaplain alone ; they seem to cling to him ; he is, as it were, the link between their lives and tho great unknown beyond. I can give you no definition of the awful look in the eyes of those who stand on tho drop; it 13 quite undeSnable, but it is' a distinctive look, and like itself alone, and I know it only too well. I don't want to be unduly sentimental, but there is a world of tragedy and pathos in this last look. Of course, the souses of many are to some extent deadened by the awful nature of their position as they stand on the scaffold ; but you may take it that in nearly all cases they are fully alive to every aspect of what is going on, and most of them die genuinely penitent. "Nodoubt the sense of fear is greatly mixed up with their remorse; but I have seen men whom you would imagine to be terrible ruffians who, at last, showed genuine remorse. Take, as an instance, even the burly Fowler, who was hanged with Mileom for the Mus well Hill murder. At the last he talked about the poor old man who was murdered, and, ruffian though he seemed to be, he was most tractable; indeed, I may tell you that I have scarcely ever had a rude word from a convict in my life.

" During the last week men condemned to die almost implore the chaplain to stay with them; they seem to dread being alone with the warders only, kindly though the latter may bo. Daring this Inst week the dreadful fear is upon the convict, and lie seems to anticipate every item of what is coming. I have been told this by them many times; and there is another thing— these men and women are far more communicative as to any act of their past lives, and as to their motives, to the chaplain than the world ever knows, and the more intelligent a convict is, the more vividly does he appear to realise the last scene. ' Perhaps the moat intelligent murderer I have seen was Netll Cream, who, in a sense, confessed that the deaths of 35 women were at his door. He told me that he had been very harshly brought up by his father, who was a sort of religious fanatic, and Cream himself had changed his faith several times. He had a marvellous memory, and he could, without prompting and in a really intellectual way, say by heart whole chapters of the Bible, and prayers and hymns by the hundred. In a far different way this statement applies to Mrs. Dyer, who was executed not long , since. _ This woman was by no means the stupid, Ignorant woman that the public imagined. She wm a most accomplished hypocrite, and she could spout—that is the only sentiment and prayers and nymns at any length. , „ * must have been a really convincing talker to 1 ? 86 who did not know her true character; and, . somnolent though she looked, she was as sharp as a needle."