CRIPPEN’S EXECUTION.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 14398, 5 January 1911, Page 8

CRIPPEN’S EXECUTION.

FAREWELL MESSAGE. Dr. Crippon was executed on November 23 at Bontonvillo for tho murder of his wife, known in tho variety world as “Bello Elmore,” at Hilldrop Crescent, Holloway, on or about February 1. Crippen walked to the scaffold firmly enough, but nearly collapsed on tho drop. From the time the executioner entered his cell until the lover was pulled only CO seconds elapsed. It is reported that Crippon planned to commit suicide the night before his execution. Ho is said to have detached the glasses of his spectacles from their frajnes and to have broken them with the intention of opening an artery with tho fragments. Crippen, in a farewell message to Lloyd’s News, commenced by protesting his innocence, and stated thatdeath had no terrors for him. “But in this letter of farewell,” he said, “I desire to make a last appeal to the world not to think tho worst of mo, and to believe words now written from tho condemned coll. I beg them to remember that 1 have been condemned on inconclusive evidence, and chiefly by evidence of export witnesses who wore contradicted by other experts upon the most vital points of the case—the scar found upon tho remains in Hilldrop Crescent.” Tho statement proceeded: “Face to face with God, in Whoso presence my soul shall soon stand for final judgment, I still maintain that I was wrongly convicted, and my belief that the tacts will yet he forthcoming to prove my innocence. I solemnly state that I knew nothing of the remains discovered at Hilldrop Crescent until 1 was told of their discovery by my solicitor, Mr. Arthur Newton, on the next day after my arrival at Bow Street.” He 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 place—suddenly confronted by an inspector from Scotland Yard, threatened with arrest if tho missing woman’s whereabouts were not shortly revealed, and told by him that tho newspapers would be ringing with tho details in a short time. “What did this mean to mo? Separation from tho ono I loved most in tho world, and tho 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 ono away whore wo could begin a new life together, free from unjust criticism, as wo believed?” In dealing with his relations with Mies Lc Novc, Crippon stated: “In this farewell letter to tho world, written as I face eternity, 1 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 tho heart, is absolute. To her I pay this last tribute. It is of her that my last thoughts have been. My last prayer will he that God.may protect her and keep hor safe from harm, and allow her to join me in eternity. Surely such lovo as hors for mo will bo 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 mo for all that, unwillingly, I have made her bear. Is that not a wonderful woman’s lovo.

“Facing my Maker, very close to the hour of my death, I give my testimony to tho absolute innocence of Ethel Lo Nove.

“She put her trust in me, and what I asked nor to do she did, never doubting. When I asked her to fly with mo because of the scandal that would follow tho discovery of Bello Elmore’s disappearance she believer! tho words I spoke, and said she would go with mo and face whatever discomforts might follow. When 1 suggested the boy’s disguise sho adopted it with a girlish sense of amusement over which there

was no shadow of guilt. . . . Her only idea now was that wo were getting away to a new world and a now life, away from prying eyes and gossiping tongues. She was willing to adventure all for that—and she still trusted me. “I make this defence and this acknowledgment—that tho love of Ethel he Neve has been the best thing in my life—my only happiness—and' 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, “We were as man and wife together, with an absolute communion of spirit. Perhaps God will pardon ns because wo were like two children in tho great unkind world, who clung to one another and gave each other courage.’’ After declaring that Miss 1.0 Neve had no suspicion of the blow that was to tall upon them, and touching upon his prison experiences, Crippen concluded his message as follows; “Why do I tell these things to the world? Not to gain anything for myself—not even compassion" But because I desire tho world 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 and strong. These are my last words. I belong no more to the world. In the silence of mv cell I prnv that God mav pity nil weak hearts, all the poor children of life, and His ixior servant, Hawley Harvey Crippen.”