BACKPAGES:RONALD MARWOOD, a 25-year-old scaffolder, was executed in London's Pentonville prison on May 8th, 1959, for stabbing a policeman.
His death prompted this dissertation on the death penalty from Myles na Gopaleen (Brian O’Nolan) and his observations on official British hangman Thomas Pierrepoint, who carried out almost 300 executions, including in Ireland, and died in 1954.
The Gallows – 1
The recent hanging in London of Ronald Marwood has led to a fresh outcry on the subject of capital punishment generally, and on Marwood’s case in particular.
I have an academic interest in the theory and practice of capital punishment; and although I am neither a murderer nor politician – the distinction is often nominal – I have had the distinction of ingesting pints of plain porter in Fanning’s old pub in Lincoln place, Dublin, in company with the late Mr Pierpoint, Hangman Plenipotentiary to the Eerie Government of Occupation.
Of Mr Pierpoint it could truly be said that “milder-manner man never scuttled ship nor slit a throat”. He was most gentlemanly and had no hesitation whatever in discussing most objectively the nature of his craft, its skills and difficulties, and mildly deploring the squeamishness of certain Irish warders. The fee he was paid “per neck” – that is the technical term – was a mere 12 guineas, plus expenses. Our Treasury Department on one occasion, he told me, tried to settle for expenses only when Mr Pierpoint had arrived in Dublin to be told of a last-minute reprieve. Nao, he said, he would not ’ave that. The Treasury clerks paid up.
There is immense documentation on the subject, for it has been a matter of pained study all over the world for nearly a century. It is fair to say that the most reactionary and brutal record belongs to Britain, assuming one ignores the bestiality of the Hitler order.
Dickens has left us a record of the last public hanging which took place in London, and Hogarth could scarcely have done the job better.
Public hanging was intended, of course, as a public spectacle, and what Dickens saw was a horrifying assembly of pimps, bawds and gin-peddlers in a great state of hilarity, booths and stand of all kinds erected for the occasion, and a fair selection of the quality occupying nearby windows. It was a demonical festival. Since executions are no longer held in public, why is this gruesome and barbarous procedure persisted in, and why has the Realm of Heremon [a high king of Ireland], which could not swallow the Oath of Allegiance, devoutly taken it over from the British?
Moreover, if our politicians really think that something truly hideous is justified, what is wrong with crucifixion? (True, the Romans did not crucify persons who were Roman citizens, but they found plenty of other people considered suitable, and I have read of a play which contained a crucifixion scene; it ran for many nights but there was no nonsense about dummies or stagecraft. Every crucifixion was genuine.)
If crucifixion would not satisfy our Gaelic ghouls, they might consider another method the Romans reserved for parricides: the convict was sewn in a sack with a viper, a dog, a cock and an ape, and cast into the sea. The symbolism escapes me, but it seems to me there is a chance that the ape might rend the sack with his long nails and (given accomplishment in notation, a word derived directly from Nato) all might survive.
There is always the guillotine. My main objection to this instrument is the universal misconception about its invention. It was not invented by Dr Guillotin at the time of the French Revolution. It was in use all over Europe for centuries before that, and was used in Edinburgh in 1581. Dr Guillotin merely advocated its use in 1789 . . .
Must write more on this tomorrow: hanged if I won’t.