END OF ILFORD DRAMA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18295, 11 January 1923, Page 7

END OF ILFORD DRAMA.

LAST NIGHT OF CONDEMNED. - MRS. THOMPSON PROSTRATED A; and N.Z. LONDON, Jan 9. Large crowds gathered this morning out- ' side Holloway and Pentonville prisons, where Mrs. Thompson and George Bywaters were executed. A conspicuous figure outside Holloway, where Mrs. Thompson was hanged, was a woman ' carrying a sandwich board, one side of which read:—"lf this woman is hanged ' the juc'ge and jury are murderers also," while the other side read: "Murder cannot be abolished by murder. Mrs. Thompson was prostrated all night long, and was continually under the care of the gaol doctor. At five o'clock in the morning she . was unconscious. During a moment that she was conscious she asked for Bywaters. At nine o'clock, the hour fixed far the execution, the woman was only partially conscious, and she had to ' be carried to the scaffold. Bywaters passed a fairly good night at Pentonville, where he was incarcerated. He .awoke at an early hour, had a light breakfast, and then smoked a cigarette. Ho sent a letter of thanks to the Governor and other officials of the gaol for their attention to him. He walked firmly to the scaffold. ' It is staled that the crowd that gathered outside Pentonville was the . largest that lias ever been seen at an execution. Neither Mrs. Thompson nor Bywaters made any statement before execution. Both previously had reaffirmed their innocence. Mrs. Thompson told the chaplain: ] " I leave the world with a clear consci- " euce regarding my husband's death." ' i,• ' "