Of course, my duties take me about the country a great deal, and I have
met a great many interesting people in the course of my travels. As a
rule, I do not make myself known unless I have some good reason for
doing so, because I have no fancy for making myself into a cheap show.
On one occasion I travelled from Coventry to Warwick with the reporter
of one of the Coventry papers. He knew nothing of my identity, and does
not seem to have recognised me at the execution; but while writing out
his report the connection between the gentleman in the train and the
executioner in the gaol seems to have dawned upon him, and he wrote the
following, which amused me greatly when it appeared in his paper:--
After writing this report and describing the hangman's features
and dress, it dawned upon the writer for the first time that the
description was that of a gentleman with whom he had travelled from
Coventry to Warwick on the previous afternoon. On reflecting upon
all the circumstances of the journey, he felt quite certain of the
fact; and although amused at the thought of having travelled and
conversed with an executioner without knowing it, he was a little
chagrined that he had not given the conversation a "professional"
turn, which he would have done had he been aware who his fellow
traveller was. The incident is sufficient to show that persons
travelling by rail occasionally get into singular company without
having the slightest knowledge of the fact.
In 1887 when I had to go to Dorchester, to hang Henry William Young
for the Poole murder, I stayed at Bournemouth, and took a room in a
Temperance Hotel. During the evening I got into conversation with the
landlady, who was much interested in the subject of executions, and
who appeared to like to discuss it. She was decidedly "down on" Berry,
"the hangsman," and expressed herself very freely as to his character
and disposition; amongst other pleasant things, saying that he was a
man without a soul, and not fit to have intercourse with respectable
people. Of course, I smilingly agreed with everything that she had to
say, and chuckled quietly to myself about a little surprise that I had
in store for her. The surprise came off at bed-time, when she handed me
my bedroom candle, and in return I handed her my card. The good lady
nearly fainted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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