CRIPPEN ON APPEAL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1008, 24 December 1910, Page 6

CRIPPEN ON APPEAL.

"GOING TO. SEE. A'MAN HANGED.'* In its account of the tearing of.the Onppea case in the Criminal Appeal Court in November the "Daily Mail" published the following not© from "A Barrister":— It was known tliat the condemned man was in the neighbourhood of til© Oourt, but one was able to hops : to • the last that his actual presence "would not be found necessary. The- - three Judges had taken their seats and the proceedings had actually started before a point of fact _ arose'where the Bench, oxercising a discretion which- was no doubt'wise; and humane, ordered-'that Crippen should •be brought in. It was - a very/pitiaible-sights A-gr'eat dealßhaa beon''Writt'en , ab'out' the man's coolness"' and imperturbability. He was certainly neither at his first appearance on Sat--urday. His nervousness was painful to: see; and when the presiding judge told ' him to be seated he sank into a chair with manifest relief. ' "Thackeray wrote a paper once upon going 'to see a man hanged,' 'and in . that way ended for ever public executions in England. Pernaps another Thackeray will arise to write about going 'to see a condemned man'listen- , ing to his appeal' so as to end that sight , for ever too. It was certainly , a - horrible sensation to everyone in that '.' Court; so horrible that it is probably' no exaggeration, to say that few could'- ', take more than a furtive glance at him. "Certainly none of the Judges looked; at him, nor counsel; but Bench and : - Bar tried to conduct the proceedings as though it were a case of Doe v. Hoe. In one particular way the Judges were more merciful; They decided the points as they arose, so there was no long-drawn-out agony. Before the proceedings were over it was quite clear that the prisoner had subsided into that i merciful condition of mental 'nymbness 1 or atrophy which nature allows to all, human "beings bej-ond a certain point of endurance. Since the establishment of the Criminal Court of Appeal this is the first capital case where the convict . has been present. Many will hope that it will be the last."