DICKENS’S LETTER RECALLS HORROR OF PUBLIC EXECUTIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26996, 3 February 1949, Page 5

DICKENS’S LETTER RECALLS HORROR OF PUBLIC EXECUTIONS

NZPA Special Correspondent Rec. 10.30 p.m. LONDON, Feb. 2. A copy of the letter which Charles Dickens wrote to The Times on November 13, 1849, and which had a large influence in putting an end to public executions in Britain, forms part of a Dickens exhibition at present being held at the Central Library, Walworth road, Southwark. Dickens wrote the letter after witnessing the execution at Horsemonger Gaol. Southwark, of Frederick and Maria Manning, man and wife, who had been convicted of murder. Dickens wrote: “I believe that a sight so inconceivably awful, and the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd gathered at that execution, could be imagined by .no man and copld be presented in no heathen land under the sun. The horrors of the gibbet, and of the crime which brought the wicked murderers to it, faded in

my mind before the atrocious bearing, looks and language of the assembled spectators. When I came upon the scene at midnight, the shrillness of the cries and howls that were raised from time to time made my blood run cold. As the night went on. swearing, laughing and yelling in strange parodies of negro melodies with substitutes of ‘ Mrs Manning ' for ‘ Susannah ’ and the like were added to these. “ When the day dawned, thieves, prostitutes, ruffians, and wrong-doers of every kind, flocked on to the ground with every variety of offensive and foul behaviour.” The letter goes on to describe the scene until “ the two miserable creatures who attracted all this ghastly sight were turned about quivering in the air." and ends with an appeal for executions to be private. The gravestones of the Mannings’ inscribed simply: “Executed November 13, 1849,” are on exhibition at Southwark with the Dickens letters.