The "executioner's office," as Mr. Berry likes to call it on his
official communications, is a house just off City Road, Bradford. It
is one of six owned by Mr. Berry. When he first took the position of
executioner some of his neighbours were so prejudiced against the work,
that they refused to live "next door to a hangman," and as landlords
naturally object to losing two or three tenants for the sake of keeping
one, Mr. Berry was obliged to move once or twice, and came to the
conclusion that he had better be his own landlord. The prejudice which
then existed has been lived down, and there is now no difficulty in
letting neighbouring houses to respectable tenants.
The house in Bilton Place is furnished just the same as hundred
of other houses in the district that are occupied by better-class
artisans, and there is nothing at all gloomy or gruesome about the
place. In fact, there is no indication of the business of the occupant.
There are, in the front room, two frames of small photographs, which
are really portraits of some of the murderers who have been executed
by Mr. Berry, but the frames bear no inscription. In a glass-fronted
sideboard, too, there are a few handsome electro goblets, cruet stands
and similar articles that have been given to Mr. Berry by some of his
admirers, but no one would connect them with his business. In drawers
and cupboards about the place there are (or were, for they have now
gone to Madame Tussaud's) a large number of relics and mementos of
executions and other incidents. Amongst them is the great knife, once
used by the executioner of Canton for the beheading of nine pirates.
This was obtained in exchange for a rope with which several persons had
been hanged. These relics were all stowed well away, and were not by
any means "on show," though the executioner did not object to producing
them if a personal friend wished to see them.
In conversation Mr. Berry is fluent, apt in anecdote and illustration,
and full of a subtle Yorkshire humour which he cannot entirely shake
off even when talking on serious subjects. He has a very good memory
for facts, and is very observant, so that he is always ready with a
personal experience or observation on almost any topic. His tastes are
simple. His favourite occupations are fishing and otter hunting, of
both of which sports he is passionately fond. Frequently when going to
an execution in a country town he takes his rod and basket, and gets a
half-day's fishing before or after the execution. He seems to like the
sport on account of its quiet and contemplative nature, and says that
he enjoys the fishing even if he never gets a nibble.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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