CRIPPEN'S EXECUTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14567, 2 January 1911, Page 6

CRIPPEN'S EXECUTION.

A FAREWELL MESSAGE.

LOVE FOB, MISS LE NEVE.

"MY ONLY HAPPINESS."

Dr. Cmi'i'EN was executed on November 23 at Pentorivillc for the murder of his wife, known in the variety world as "Belle Elmore," at Hillclrop Crescent, Hollo way, on or about February 1.

Grippen. walked to the scaffold firmly enough, but nearly collapsed on the drop. From the time the executioner entered his cell until the lever was pulled only 60 seconds elapsed

It is reported: that Grippen. planned to />mmit suicide the night, before his execution. He is said to have detached the glasses of his spectacles from their frames, and to have broken them with the intention of opening an artery with the fragments

Crippen, in a farewell message to Lloyd's News, commenced by protesting his innocence, and stating that death had no terrors for him. "But in thifi letter of farewell," he said, "I desire to make a last appeal to the world not to think the worst of me, and to believe words now written from the condemned cell. I beg them to remember that I have been, condemned on inconclusive evidence, and chiefly by evidence of expert witnesses who were contradicted by other experts upon the most vital point of the case— the scar found upon the remains in Hilldrop Crescent." The statement proceeded :—"Pace, face With God, in Whose presence my soul shall (soon stand for final judgment, I still maintain that I was wrongly convicted, and my belief that facts will yet be forthcoming to prove my innocence. I solemnly state that 1 knew nothing of the remains discovered at Hilldrop Crescent until I was told of their discovery by my solicitor, Mr. Arthur Newton, on the next day after my arrival at Bow-street."

Ho declared that his conviction was obtained on purely circumstantial evidence, and added : —"Why did I go away?" " No doubt it was a foolish move. But put yourself in my —suddenly confronted by an inspector from Scotland Yard, threatened with arrest if the missing woman's whereabouts were not shortly revealed, and told by him that the newspapers would be ringing with the details in a short time.

" What did this mean to me?— Separation from the one I loved most in the world, and the laying bare to vulgar interpretation of our sacred relations, which I did not feel justified in doing at the time. Was it so very wrong, then, that my immediate thought was to take my loved one away where we could begin a new life together, free from unjust criticism, as we believed ?" In dealing with his relations with Miss Le Neve, Crippen stated:—"ln this farewell letter to the world, written as I face eternity, I say that Ethel Le Neve has loved me as few women love men, and that her innocence of any crime, save that of yielding to the dictates of the heart, is absolute. To her I pay this last tribute. It is of her that my last thoughts have been. My last prayer will be that God may protect her and keep her safe from harm, and allow-her to join me in eternity. Surely such love as hers for me will be rewarded. . . . Remember that she has faced the agonies and torture of "being charged with murder, of enduring a long imprisonment, of facing a terrible prosecution before her acquittal. Yet she still loves-me. Never once has she turned against me for all that, unwillingly, I have made her bear. Is that not a wonderful woman's love

"Facing my Maker, very close to the hour of my death, I give my testimony to the absolute innocence of Ethel Le Nove. . She put her trust in me, and what I asked her to do she did, never doubting. When I asked her to fly with me because of the scandal that would follow the discovery of Belle Elmore's disappearance she believed the words I spoke, and said she would go with me and face whatever discomforts might follow. When I suggested the boy's 'disguise she adopted it with a girlish sense of amusement over which there was no shadow of guilt. . . . Her only idea now was that we were getting away to a new world and a new life, away from pryins eyes and gossiping tongues. She was willing to adventure all for that— she still trusted me.

, " I make tins defence and this acknowledgmentthat the love of Ethel Le Neve has been the best thing mmy life—my only happinessand that in return for that great gift I have been inspired with a greater kindness towards my fellow-beings, and with a greater desire to do good. "Wo were as man and wife together, with an absolute communion of spirit. Perhaps God will pardon us because we ■were like two children in the great unkind; world, who clung to one another and gave each other courage." After declarinc that Miss Le Neve had no suspicion of the blow that was to fall' •upon them, and touching upon his prison experiences, Crimnen concluded his message as follows :—"Why do I tell these things to the world Not to gain anything for myself—not oven compassion. But because I desire the work! to have pity on a woman who, however weak she may have seemed in their eyes, has been loyal in the midst of misery, and to the very end of tragedy, and whose love had been selfsacrificing «nd strong. These are my last words. I belong no more to the world. In the silence of my cell I pray that God may pitv all weak hearts, all the poor children'of life, and His poor servant,, Hawley Harvey Crippen."