A MURDERER'S EXPERIENCES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 688, 14 July 1882, Page 2

A MURDERER'S EXPERIENCES.

As already stated (says a late Home paper), the convict Thomas Fury, who has been sentenced to death at Durham assizes for the murder of a prostitute at Sunderland thirteen years ago, to which he confessed while serving a term ot penal servitude, threw a long statement to the reporters who were in court, not being allowed to read the same by the judge. This document occupies three and a half columns of the local: paper, and is a strange composition. Its purpose is to show that our social 'System is responsible for Fury’s criminal career, of which it gives some thrilling details, and the argument is supported by references to writers in the most widely diverse fields of literature. Plato, Shakspeare, “the judicious Hooker,” Darwin, Huxley, and Mr William Hoyle, are all laid under service to prove that the social fabric is faulty at the foundation. Fury, considering his meagre . education, is unquestionably a remarkable man. During the earlier periods of his prison and other experiences he , devoted much time to' the study of chemistry, and, as his statement shows, he felt keenly the late refusal to grant him access to books of a scientific kind. Efe has conceived a plan by which he believes he could fuel the navy at half the present cost, and he has a scheme for lessening the cost of r&ilway transit. Since his youth he has not read novels, and before his appearance in court he had spoken strongly upon the demoralising effects of the publication of the _ records of criminals. He has great fciste for poetry, can recite long passages.' from popular poets; Byron’s denunciations of the pleasures of the world having for him great attraction as a .description of his own experiences. Wordsworth is his favorite poet. He confesses himself a villain, but says that when he got drunk he could not resist crime, and strongly denounces the liquor traffic. “ Gentlemen,” says Frury, “my father 'was a drunkard j my mother was forced to become one —held down by her nearest relatives while they poured rum down her thtoat until she promised to he sociable. Queer sociability in a Christian land ! And, as regards myself, I know that I was raving drunk before I was eight years old, and several times before I was ten years of age; and cn one . occasion the very cure for the. measles given to me was saffron and as much brandy as I could swallow, the effect of which was to create an undying love for spirits—a constant craving .for spirits or liquors—and that craving has been the means of making me commit all kinds of crime to satisfy., it/ and even at the present moment, although I know its effects and results to myself and others, that craving for . drink would almost make me commit another murder to satisfy it. o Gentle- . men, one of the effects of drink upon me, I mean when I have been drinking for sorae-tfine, is an irresistible desire to do injury, either by word or deed to others, even though they may have given me no provocation whatever; one instance, threatening my mother with a knife; shame being the only cause for not executing the threat" Fury then tells an extraordinary story of his own ill-treatment while in prison, especially at Peptonville. The, condemned man .tells a terrible tale of neglected ailment and serai-starvation, alleging that all his complaints simply led to repeated additional punishment. He confessed to the murder in * order to be delivered from a condition of permanent disease or insanity* which appeared inevitable. “It was the unnecessary punishment and indignities inflicted upon me in my first sentence cf P.S. that caused me to resolve that, if I ever saw myself in' danger of ; P.Si again, I would go in for hanging rather

than do it*’ And he has “ gone in foi a hanging.”