CALCRAFT.

Evening Post, Issue 216, 21 November 1865, Page 3

CALCRAFT.

The conversation on the way back not unnaturally turns upon the hangman. The dread functionary oi the law, it appears is a maligned individual, notwithstanding the popular opinion to the contrary, and feels much aggrieved that he should have been described in the Times as " a short, thick-set, shabby man, with venerable white locks and beard, which bis sinister face belied, cringing with fawning deference to all he passed." Calcraft is by trade a cobbler, more enthusiastic in his calling, perhaps than successful. As a state official of no small importance, attached to the staff of tf ewgate, he receives a guinea a week ; for every convict hanged in London, he receives another guinea in addition. If required to go to the country, however, on particular business, his terms rise in proportion, and he has been known to get as much as £20 for the job, it being understood that in all eases he pays his travelling expenses, and finds the rope wherewith to exercise his office. His income, exclusive of what he makes by cobbling, of course, varies. The reprieve of Townley, for instance, was a severe loss to him : and he is said, in a professional point of view, to have looked upon himself as deprived of his just due by )"ir George Grey's vacillating conduct. Making allowance for these occasional disappointments, his emoluments, nevertheless, are large, and his income, from wielding the rope of justice amounts nearly to two hundred pounds a-year. The price of hanging a criminal has, it appears, risen considerably since the year 1813. From an old bill of that date, made out when Sir George Silvester was Recorder of London, the fees of the executioner were reckoned at 7s 6d ; for stripping the body 4s 6d, for the use of the shell. 2s 6d ; 14s 6d in all. Disagreeable as the hangman's office may seem now-a-days, it is a mistake to suppose that the honour of being his assistant is not constantly and even eagerly sought after. No less than five separate applications were made to the Governor to fill the post at the execution of the Flowery Land pirates. The privilege of appointing an assistant is generally conceded to Calcraft himself, and the Governor of the gaol ia thus, very properly, relieved of the responsibility, should anything in the arrangements for carrying out the sentence go wrong ; whibt Calcraft acquires additional confidence by the know ledge that he can depend upon his subordinates in the performance of their office. The " art of hanging " is now better understood than formerly ; it may be safely asserted, notwithstanding what has been said to the contrary, that there is no more painless or humane mode of death. There can be little doubt that the mental pain produced by the tprror of approaching death is far greater than the mere physical pain of hanging. According to the best medical authorities, even if the neck of the convict be not broken by the weight of the body, death is instantaneously caused by the effusion of blood on the biain consequent on strangulation, Perhaps no greater proof of the painlessness ot the present form of capital punishment could be adduced than the peaceful expression of Countenance which remains after death.— Life at Home and Abroad.

The Dtindalk Democrat, finds a reason for the failure of the Atlantic Telegraph expedition. " Had a handy Irishman o r

Frenchman," says the Democrat, "been at the head of affairs in laying the cable, ever) thing would have jrone on well ; !>ut the work was superintended by an Englishman, and that accounts for the blunder and the failure." Many people go through the world, hearing nothing and seeing nothing. For all valuable purposes, their ears are as deaf as an ear of corn, and their eyes as blind as the eye of a patato. Why is bad music like a violent exertion of the limbs and muscles? — Because it is an unwelcome strain. Fashionable society generally has but two faults : first, in being hollow headed ; and, secondly, hollow-hearted. It is Walter Savnge Laudor who says— "Little men in lofty places throw long shadows, because our sun is setting." A lather was winding his watch, when he said, playfully, to his little girl, " Let me wind your nose, up." — "No," said the child, " I don't want my nose wound up, for I don't want it to run all day.'* An expedition to the Arctic regions left Hamburg lately to proceed to the eastern coast of Spiizbergen, and from that point to Nova Zembla, to asoertain by careful ex- ; amination of the seas whether Dr. Peterman's theories with regard to the direction of the Gulf Stream are correct. This expedition is understood to be pioneer to another, to be conducted upon a much larger scale, and with yet more important scientific and commercial objects in view. The funds have been partly raised by subscription among the Senate and citizens of Hamburg and the merchants of Bremen. The level of the Dead Sea, often disputed, has been settled by Captain Wilson, R.E., who left England last September as head of a surveying expedition in Tatestine, paid for by subscription. The water after the freshets is 1239 5 feet, and in summer 1298 feet, lower than the Mediterranean.