The book "Memory by DATAS" (William John Maurice BOTTLE) - Chapter VII.

This version attempts to mimic Datas' book.  The paging and text follows
the book's layout as far as possible.

"NOTE: Datas' assertion (page 116) that James Berry served his apprenticeship under hangman Bartholomew Binns has been refuted by Binns' g.g.niece Doreen (nee Binns).  She also refutes Datas' claim that the old time song, "I'm the Ghost of Benjamin Binns" refers to her g.g.uncle Bartholomew.  Furthermore she says that the tobacco shop was Binns's not Berry's and was the other half of Binns's barbers business, the shop being at 97 Daisy Hill Dewsbury."


                   CHAPTER VII

              TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD

I HAVE met many executioners during my travels
in various countries, and I have always made a
point of cultivating their acquaintance----not out
of any morbid curiosity, but from a purely pro-
fessional point of view.  The dates of famous
murder trials, and the dates of the executions of
notorious murderers have always formed a large
proportion of the questions I have been asked.
Consequently I have sought executioners out
when possible, and got from their own lips the
stories of the various executions at which they
have officiated.
 I was on my first visit to America 'when I met
the executioner of Johann Hoch, the mesmerist
murderer, who, before he went to his doom, had
taken unto himself some fifty "wives", all of
whom he had robbed and deserted within the
space of thirteen short years, and one of whom
he poisoned with arsenic.

                         113



114      DATAS:  THE MEMORY MAN

 Hoch, I was amazed to hear, was one of
the most likeable fellows one could possibly
meet.
 "He used to keep the death guard in roars of
laughter during the time he was awaiting execu-
tion," I was told, "and would rattle off funny
stories by the score. He would play the most
amusing practical jokes on other prisoners, and
even the Governor went through it.  Hoch
would send for him on some trivial account, and
hold him seriously in conversation until the
guards who were looking after him could not
restrain their laughter.
 "Even the Chaplain who attended him, and
knew what a thorough blackguard he was, could
not resist his fascination, and when Hoch with
a smile said `Good-bye' to him, he broke down
and wept. The first time I saw him, he held out
his hand, and said: `I'm sorry our acquaintance
will be so short."'
 Now Hoch had inveigled woman after woman
into his toils, by means of advertisements. He
got them to take their money out of the bank
and hand it over to him, or else he persuaded
them to buy houses of which he afterwards be-
came possessed, and then left them high and dry.
He had previously enrolled himself as a pupil at
a school of mesmerism, and undoubtedly used



         TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD                 115

this power to influence his dupes. At length,
after reaping a rich harvest from about fifty such
victims, he attracted the attention of a Mrs.
Walcker, whom he married, and took to live in
a cottage which he declared was his own. She
was a widow and owned a shop, which he pre-
vailed upon her to sell.
 Within a few days she was taken ill, and sent
for her sister, to whom Hoch at once began to
make love, with the result that his dying wife
ordered her out of the house. Soon afterwards
the fiftieth or so Mrs. Hoch died, and on the way
home from the funeral, he suggested that the
other sister should marry him, which she did.
The same day he left her also, and as he had
taken some money with him, she put the matter
in the hands of the police. An advertisement was
inserted in various newspapers, and the police
were inundated with letters from duped women
who had recognised from the description the
man who had married, robbed and left them.
 Amongst the letters was one from the pro-
prietress of a New York boarding house, saying
that she was being courted by a man of the same
description. Hoch was arrested and executed,
a fountain-pen filled with arsenic being found
in his possession.
 Three times he was taken to the gallows, and



116      DATAS:  THE MEMORY MAN

each time some triviality stayed the hangman's
hand. On the last occasion when the warrant
was being read authorising the execution, his
lawyer demanded a respite, and the authorities
agreed to wait an hour. As the executioner told
me: "Hoch simply grinned, and ordered a most
sumptuous feast, with a cigar to follow, and as
he left the gallows to eat it he turned to me and
said: `I shall be ready at half-past one----don't
keep me waiting.' He was executed at Chicago
on the 23rd February, 1906, and went down in
history as `The World's Champion Bigamist
Murderer'.
 James Berry was another old "executioner"
friend of mine. He was a blunt, typical York-
shireman, with a rare pride in his profession as
well became a man who had served his appren-
ticeship to the noble science of hanging under
such a historic public executioner as the great
Bartholomew Benjamin Binns, the hero of that
famous old time song, "I'm the Ghost of Ben-
jamin Binns". It is a singular thing how many
hangmen combined their job of the gallows with
the less sinister occupation of shopkeeper. Berry
used to keep a tobacco shop in Dewsbury.
  Berry's most famous "case" was probably that
of John Lee  "the man they could not hang" ;
the man who served a long and terrible sentence



         TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD                 117

for a crime which, I am convinced, he did not
commit.
 I knew John Lee well. I knew him for many
years, just as I knew Berry, the man who tried
to hang him, and from them I leaned the real
truth about the failure of the trap-door to open
and send poor Lee to his doom.
Lee talked quite frankly with me about the
murder, and now that he is dead----he died in
Sydney, on October 3rd, 1921, after eloping
with a woman from Newcastle----I can tell the
whole story as it was revealed to me, by the two
chief figures in the drama.
 It was whilst I was on tour in Bradford in
April, 1903, that I heard that Berry had arrived
in the town, and as I was most anxious to get
the full list of details regarding the executions he
had carried out so that I could give the fullest
particulars when asked by any member of the
audience, I made an appointment to see him.
He was staying at a house in Bilton Place,
Girlingham, Bradford----am I right, sir ?----and
I called upon him at ten o'clock in the morn-
ing.
  It was from Berry's own lips that I gathered a
description of what happened on that ghastly
morning of the 23rd February, 1885, when for
thirty five minutes he endeavoured to carry out



118      DATAS:  THE MEMORY MAN


sentence of death upon this twenty-year-old
youth.
 "They talk a lot of rot about the scaffold
having been tested with bags of sand weighing
exactly the same weight as Lee," said Berry in
telling me the story, "but you can take it from
me there is no truth in it. They will tell you
that, twice after the trap-door refused to work,
bags of sand were brought and placed on it, and
that when the lever was pulled the trap-door
opened and the bags fell through. And then they
say that when John Lee was brought out the
trap-door would not work when the lever was
pulled.
 "It was nothing of the kind. I cannot tell you
the real facts about it yet, as my lips are sealed
for the time, but one day you shall know.
 "What I can tell you is this. That poor boy
was brought out on that Monday morning, and
in those days they had to walk farther to the
scaffold than they do to-day. I had pinioned
him, and when he was on the trap-door
strapped his legs in a trice and pulled the lever.
 "Nothing happened. I could not believe my
eyes. I jerked the lever backwards and forwards,
wondering what was wrong, but there stood John
Lee with the cap still over his head.
 "I looked towards the Governor, and he made



         TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD                 119


a motion with his head. I whipped off the leg
straps and in a moment Lee was back in his cell
whilst we were busy at the scaffold trying to
locate the trouble.
 "It was a new scaffold, and as there had been
no execution at Exeter Gaol for a number of
years, they had had this one freshly built for the
execution of Lee. The prison carpenter could
find nothing wrong with it except that it fitted
a bit tight owing to a heavy downpour of rain all
through the day before.
 "This had caused the new wood to swell.
Some of it was shaved off, and Lee was brought
to the scaffold once more. The work had been
done hurriedly to lessen the terrible torture that
Lee must have been suffering during the period
of waiting.
 "Unfortunately it was not well done. When
we got. him on the trap again it still would not
work, and he was removed once more so that
further shavings could be taken off. And then
for the third time I strapped his legs as he stood-
there straight and upright, the most fearless man
I had ever seen.
 "I pulled the lever----and I heard a groan, fol-
lowed by a thud. One of the warders had fainted
with sheer horror.  The trap-door had not
moved, and the doomed man stood there still.



120      DATAS:  THE MEMORY MAN

The Governor was white-faced and trembling,
and I felt as I had never felt before.

 "In a quavering voice the Governor ordered
the remaining warders to attack the trap-door
with the flat heads of the axes they were carrying.
They did so.
 "Meanwhile Lee stood erect and immovable
while the warders hammered----hammered again
at the trap-door upon which he stood. I remem-
ber patting him on the back, and murmuring:
`My poor fellow----my poor fellow !'
 "I remember the Governor speaking words of
comfort to the unhappy man. Still the trap-door
did not budge, and by this time other warders
were lying around, having collapsed with the
awfulness of the thing which had happened.
 "At length the Governor ordered Lee to be
taken back to the cell. I released his legs, I took
the pinion straps from off his arms, and he was
given a glass of brandy which he did not drink.
 "Meanwhile the Governor got into touch with
the Home Secretary, who at once wired back: `In
view of the mental torture Lee has suffered grant
him respite.'
 "And nobody was more glad than I was.  I
think if another attempt at execution had been
ordered I should have resigned my job."
 Now that was the story as told to me by Berry,



         TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD                 121

the hangman. And that was as far as he could
go at that time in 1903.  I was to meet him
several times afterwards, and was to meet him
in the company of the man whom he had thrice
tried and failed to hang.
 At that time he had retired, and he had learnt
something more about the new scaffold. He told
me that from that day onwards nobody has ever
been executed on a Monday, and in order that
the real truth should not leak out, he put it
about that the real reason for the putting off of
executions from the Monday was that it fre-
quently happened that the executioner had some
difficulty in getting a train connection which
would get him to the gaol the night before the
execution owing to there being fewer trains on
Sunday.
   "   To some extent this was true, but the real
reason was to make sure that the scaffold could
be thoroughly examined before the execution to
see that it was in proper working order both on
the night before and on the morning of the
execution.
 Now it was not until after Lee's release that
I was able to learn from his own lips the story
of what had happened so far as he was concerned.
He was arrested on November 14th, 1884, for
the murder of Miss Emma Whitehead Keyse, of



122      DATAS:  THE MEMORY MAN

the Glen, Babbacombe.  She was a friend of
Royalty, and her murder aroused tremendous
interest.
 The details of the crime are so well known
that it is not necessary for me to relate them.
John Lee was arrested on November 14th, 1884,
brought to trial at Exeter Assizes, and sentenced
to death on February 4th, 1885, by Justice
Manisty.
 The latter recommended him to mercy on
account of his youth----he was only twenty----
but no reprieve was forthcoming, and so John
Lee went through that grim experience of stand-
ing three times on the scaffold with the noose
around his neck.
 Years afterwards----in 1904----I met the Chap-
lain who officiated on that occasion, and who told
me that the incident would never fade from his
mind. This was the Reverend Pitkin, and he told
me that Lee was a brave boy.  "We were all
terribly distressed at what happened," said the
Chaplain. "I read the burial service three times
that morning."
 Lee was released on December 18th, 1907,
having served twenty three years one month and
four days.
 It was at "The Clock", at the corner of Nunn
Street, Newcastle, that Berry and I met Lee. I



         TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD                 123

shall never forget the meeting of those two men,
----the executioner and the man he tried to hang.
They shook hands and Lee grinned.
 "I knew I would not hang," he said, and then
more seriously, "I don't know how I knew it
but something seemed to tell me that I should
not die then. By the way, did you ever get to
know why that trap-door did not act?" He gave
another little grin.
 "Yes," replied Berry, "but let me hear your
version, and I'll tell you if it's the same." And
then for the first time the true secret of the
failure of the trap-door to act was made known,
and is now published for the first time.
 "I learned it years afterwards from one of the
old lags whom I met in Portland," said Lee, tell-
ing the story. "He was in Exeter Gaol at the
time I was awaiting execution, and was one of
the men engaged in the erection of the new
scaffold. We were in the same gang eventually,
and he told me all about it.
 "There was another man there, an old lag
who had been a carpenter in his day, and when
it was decided to build the new scaffold he
thought he would make it as difficult for the
hangman as he possibly could, so he made the
trap-door with a slight slant which caused the
edges to fit in such a manner that when a weight



124      DATAS:  THE MEMORY MAN

was put upon it they got tighter and tighter,
becoming almost wedged.
 "The man had no idea of the terrible torture
he was going to inflict on the poor devil who
was condemned. All he thought about was mak-
ing things as awkward for the authorities as
possible, and the hangman in particular.  The
doomed man never crossed his mind, I sup-
pose.
 "One of the boards was screwed on with a
slight warp. This was the one on which the con-
demned man would stand, and by causing this
one to spread outwards a bit it made the trap fit
all the tighter."
 At this point Berry broke in: "Yes, that's the
story I heard. It had leaked out to the Governor
of the gaol, who told me long afterwards, and of
course the heavy rains which fell on the day
before played right into the hands of the joker.
By the way, I suppose you know that ever
since that day every scaffold has had a canopy
built over it to protect it against bad weather.
We didn't want a repetition of your job, you
know."
 "Well----it was the worst thirty five minutes
I have ever known," Lee went on, "and I shall
never forget the horrible feeling when I could feel
the boards trembling beneath my feet as the



         TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD                 125

warders hammered at them with their axes. It
sounded so hollow, and it seemed to be years
before I felt you unstrapping my ankles and
marching me off. Even then it was hours before
I knew that I was not to be taken out again.
That was the most welcome  news  I  ever
received."
 "Why were you kept in prison so long after
the normal period of your life sentence had ex-
pired ?" I asked him, for only in rare cases is a
man kept in durance vile after fifteen years
have elapsed.
 "I heard a number of reasons," replied Lee.
"One was that the then Home Secretary was a
personal friend of the dead woman, Miss Keyse,
and he had heard that I had threatened to attack
one or two people when I got out of prison, so
that he thought it safer to keep me in prison
until after they were all dead."
 "Did you make any such threats ?" I asked
him, and he smiled. "Of course not----I had no
grudge against anyone."

 Berry told me he never liked hanging women,
and this is somewhat singular, as I have heard
that he would burst out into the most frightful
blasphemy when one of his "probables" was
reprieved, and the landlord of a certain public-
house in Liverpool, whither Berry used to go to



126      DATAS:  THE MEMORY MAN

fortify himself for the next morning's work, on
the eve of an execution told me how he had once
"laid him out".
 It appears that Berry had gone in as usual,
and ordered his beer, confiding to mine host
that he had "a couple to stitch up the next morn-
ing". He always carried his little black bag with
the pinioning straps with him, and in return for
liquid refreshment would display to the curious
these implements of his trade, with savoury de-
tails of the various people they had "fixed up":
On this occasion he was just about to partake of
his third pint when a messenger came in with a
wire. He tore it open and then gave vent to a
string of oaths. Picking up his pewter pot of
beer, he flung it violently to the ground, at the
same time explaining that the telegram con-
tained the news that one of his "clients" had
been reprieved. "Taking the so-and-so bread
out of a fellow's mouth," he exclaimed, and swore
so loudly and continuously that the landlord
came round, and floored him.
 That was typical of Berry. He had not the
least sense of humour, which is not remarkable
perhaps considering his occupation. In view of
this attitude, it is strange that he had an aversion
to executing women. "I cannot understand it
myself," he remarked when I saw him early on



         TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD                 127

in my career. "I suppose I've got a weak spot
somewhere."
 And yet his first female execution was a double
one. That was when he hung Catherine Flan-
nigan and Margaret Higgins for the murder of
the latter's husband by poisoning. There were
also other murders committed by these women,
probably to obtain insurance money on their
victims. That was on the 3rd March, 1884, at
Liverpool. The two women were sisters. A few
days afterwards----on March 31st, he officiated
at another double execution, this time in Scot-
land, when he sent to their death Robert Flockart
Vickars, and William Innes, for the double mur-
der of John Fortune, and John Diarmid, at
Edinburgh.
 Berry's first triple execution was in 1886 when
on the 8th February he executed Anthony Benja-
min Rudge, James Baker, and John Martin for
the murder of a policeman named Byrnes.
 Next to his triple attempt to hang John Lee,
his worst experience in connection with the gal-
lows was when he executed a man named Robert
Goodale at Norwich on the 30th November,
1885. Goodale had murdered his wife and then
tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat. As
Berry told me long years afterwards :
 "I never used to read the blessed newspapers,



i28      DATAS:  THE MEMORY MAN

and I never knew much about what had hap-
pened as regards my clients. When I came to
have a look at my man before working out the
drop I should give him, I did not know that he
had been some months in hospital, and that his
throat was not long healed from his attempted
suicide. I sized him up and on the morning got
him away as expeditiously as possible. You can
imagine what I felt like when the poor chap
went down, and I could tell from the rope that
the drop had pulled his head off. Of course the
jury had to view the body, and so that nothing
of the man's injuries should be seen, they cov-
ered up the neck with a handkerchief."
 There were several women executed during
Berry's "term of office", and he gave me a
graphic description of the manner in which Mrs.
Pearcy----otherwise Wheeler----went to her doom.
The woman was sentenced to death for the mur-
ders of Mrs. Phoebe Hogg, and her eighteen
months old child, and at the time they created
the greatest horror on account of the extraordin-
ary callousness of the murderess. The murders
took place at Kentish Town, on October 24th,
1890, and after she had killed her victims, Mrs.
Pearcy placed the bodies of the mother and child
in the latter's perambulator. Covering them over
she wheeled them through the public streets to



         TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD                 129

a distance between one and two miles. She was
executed at Newgate, and just before Berry
pulled the lever, she said to the Sheriff: "The
sentence which has been passed upon me is a
just one, but the evidence given against me was
false."
 She was executed two days before Christmas,
and Berry said: "She was a good looking woman
and smiled at me when I went to strap her up.
I felt rotten, and as I put the rope round her
neck I whispered to her: `It's a shame.' And I
meant it. It seemed a shame that such a nice
woman should die in that way."
 His last execution was at Greenock, in Jan-
uary, 1891. There had never been an execution
at Greenock before, nor has there been one since.
It was a man named Storey who murdered a
beautiful circus rider named  Lizzie Pastor.
Storey was ring master of Cook's Circus at the
time, and had fallen in love with Miss Pastor,
upon whom he pressed his unwelcome atten-
tions. When she would not respond to his pleas
he killed her, by stabbing her with a knife. After
the murder he strolled into the Buck's Head
public-house, in West Blackhall Street, and
calmly sold the knife with which he had com-
mitted the deed for fourpence----the price of a
"pot" in those days.



130      DATAS:  THE MEMORY MAN

 It was after this that Berry retired and took
up lecturing.  He toured the country with a
magic lantern, and his letter-heading was of the
most dramatic and intriguing type.  He des-
cribed himself as "James Berry, late public hang-
man of Great Britain and Ireland, Channel
Islands and the Isle of Man". He also intimated
that he had taken up phrenology for it went on :
"Heads Examined, Palmistry Explained." Oh !
a great fellow was Berry, and I am only sorry
I could not get him and John Lee on the halls
in the double act I had mapped out for them.
 The Billingtons were a totally different type
of executioners. In the first place William Bil-
lington, the father, was a Sunday School teacher
before he took on the job of hangman. Born at
Farnworth, near Bolton, he was a little man,
and loved the limelight. I frequently appeared
at the Grand Theatre, Bolton, and the manager
there would tell me how the elder Billington
would come into the theatre after having carried
out an execution in the morning, bringing his
black bag with him, and attracting attention to
himself by applauding the artists long after the
rest of the audience had ceased to do so.
 I met him in the very early days of my career,
and we had many a chat about things. It was
he who told me about Neil Cream, that diaboli-



         TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD                 131

cal poisoner who, like that man of mystery, Jack
the Ripper, selected his victims from women of
the unfortunate class. His capture was a triumph
for Inspector Tunbridge, of Scotland Yard, for
it was due to this officer's efforts that Cream was
run to earth over a year after the murders started.
At least four women were poisoned by this fiend,
and it may well be that during his lifetime he
poisoned others.
 The first girl to die was one, Ellen Donworth,
who collapsed suddenly in Waterloo Road, and
died from strychnine poisoning. Six days later
another woman, Matilda Clover, died in her
lodgings; a local doctor who was called in certi-
fying her death as being from delirium tremens.
A year elapsed----during which Neil Cream had
returned to Canada where he had spent his
youth, and where he had graduated as an M.D.
at McGill College, Montreal. Two days after
his return to this country, two more women died
under mysterious circumstances, and, as analysis
proved, from strychnine poisoning. It was then
that the police concluded that the person who
had poisoned the last two women, had also
poisoned the woman Donworth. The death of
Clover was not then thought to be due to foul
play.
 It was by a mere coincidence that Inspector



132      DATAS:  THE MEMORY MAN

Tunbridge discovered that a certain Dr. Broad-
bent had received a letter the year before, stating
that the writer had absolute proof that he had
poisoned Miss Clover with strychnine, and
demanding money.  This was signed Malone,
and, as Neil Cream had already been arrested by
Inspector Tunbridge for blackmail of a similar
nature, a Mr. Harper having received letters
accusing him of murdering the two last victims,
the Inspector asked that the body of Clover
should be exhumed. A terrible task it must
have been, for she had been buried for over a
year, and was the fifteenth body down in the
paupers' grave.  It was proved that she had
also died from poisoning; the letters were proved
to be in the hand-writing of Neil Cream, and
the latter came into the hands of Billington.
 "He was a brave man----whatever else he may
have been," Billington told me, "and I believe
that before he died he asked that he should be
given a shot of the same poison he had used to
kill his victims. The executioner always has the
last word, and many's the last message I have
received from a doomed man's lips as I have
pulled the cap over his head, and adjusted the
noose.  Sometimes it has been some private
message for his wife or a pal. Sometimes it has
been to give me some little gift, and tell me



         TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD                 133

where I should find it. As I pulled the cap over
Neil's head, I whispered: `Anything you want
to say?' and he replied: `Yes----I am Jack----'
Just at that moment I had stepped back to the
lever, and my son nudged my arm as he came
up from fastening the leg straps. Had I waited a
fraction of a second longer, I believe he would
have added `the Ripper'. But I pulled the lever
right then, and down he went with the sentence
not finished."
 Billington officiated at the execution of Albert
Millsom and Henry Fowler for the murder of
Henry Smith, at Muswell Hill.  They were
arrested only after a desperate resistance, and
fought in the dock after being sentenced.
 That was actually a triple execution for on
the same day that he launched Millsom and
Fowler into eternity at Newgate, he also hung
William Seaman for the murder of a Mr. Levy.
His two sons, Bill and Tom, assisted him on that
occasion, and they afterwards became known as
"The Brothers Billington". That triple execu-
tion took place on the 9th June, 1896, and the
next morning he hung that infamous creature,
Mrs. Amelia Dyer, on the same scaffold at
Newgate.
 "She had just finished a bottle of gin, when I
went in to fix her up," he told me, "and looked



 34      DATAS:  THE MEMORY MAN

at me with bleary eyes, but she did not give any
trouble. I reckon I hold the record for triple
executions," he told me on another occasion
"for after that one on the 9th June, I did another
at Winchester, on the 21st July, when I hung
Samuel Smith, Philip Matthews for the murder
of his child, and Frederick Burden for the mur-
der of Angelina Faithful. That was two triples
in about six weeks."
 He appeared to be quite proud of his record.
Like Berry he did not care about hanging women,
and he told me that the loveliest woman he ever
hung was Louisa Masset, who murdered her
child in a lavatory at Dalston Railway Station.
This case created a tremendous sensation at the
time because the woman attempted to get away
with a most plausible alibi, but it broke down
on examination, and she was executed at New-
gate on the 9th January, 1900, this being the
first execution of the present century.
 Less than two months afterwards he executed
another woman, Ada Chard Williams, for the
murder of a child by drowning.  She was a
second Mrs. Dyer, and it was suspected that this
victim was but one of many whom she had done
to death for the few pounds she obtained for
adopting them. She was the last woman hanged
at old Newgate before it was pulled down, and



         TALES OF THE SCAFFOLD                 135

the first women to be hung at Holloway Gaol
after Newgate was closed were Mrs. Sach and
Mrs: Walter, who were also baby farmers. They
were found guilty of the murder of a new-born
baby. That was on February 3rd, 1903. The
latter were hung by the Brothers Billington, the
old man having died in the meantime under
rather singular circumstances.
 On the 3rd of December, 1901, he was called
upon to hang one of his greatest friends, a man
named Patrick McKenna, who had murdered
his wife at Bolton. McKenna was hung at Man-
chester, and I have heard that it was a very
affecting scene when Billington entered the death
cell to pinion the arms of his one time pal. He
was taken ill a day or two afterwards, and on the
10th December----on the very morning that he
was to have hung Alick Claydon for the murder
of his wife at Northampton, he died. Sir Basil
Thompson was the Governor of Northampton
Gaol at the time, and it fell to his lot to advise
Claydon that he would not be executed that day
owing to the death of the hangman.  The
doomed man smiled, and replied that he did not
mind waiting a day or two. He was eventually
hung on the thirteenth, and on that morning he
ate two big breakfasts consisting of steak, tripe
and onions.

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