DEFYING THE HANGMAN.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 629, 3 May 1921, Page 7

DEFYING THE HANGMAN.

AMAZING ESCAPES FRGiYI DEATH There is no man living to-day who has actually been hanged, but there are many records of resuscitation after hanging. One of these belongs to the year 1264. Mmme. de Balsham was condemned £o death for harbouring thieves. She was hanged and left suspended on the gallows from Monday morning until sunrise on Thursday. Yet, on being taken down she revived. Henry 111 granted her a pardon. In 1650 an Oxford girl was hanged for the murder of her child. When handed over to the doctors for dissection she revived. Inquiries were made as to her sen-* sations during suspension, but she remembered nothing, saying her revival was just like waking from a deep sleep. A. housebreaker (Smith) was hanged at Tyburn in 1705, and a reprieve arrived alter he had been suspended for 15 minutes. On being taken down he revived. A man named William Duell had a hard fate. He was hanged in London in 1740, and was carried to Surgeons’ Hall to be anatomised. Before the doctors could start he came to life again. That ought to have won him another chance, but it did not. He was transported, a fate not always preferable. At Cork a man was hanged in 1767 for street robbery. On being taken down he was hurried to a surgery, where an incision was made in his windpipe, He recovered so rapidly that he went to the theatre the same evening.

After Fauntleroy, banker and forger was excuted in 1824, a rumor got about that he had escaped death by insertion of a silver tube in his throat. This prevented strangulation, and he was restored to consciousness. There is, however, no confirmtion of this strange story.)

A prisoner was taken from Cardiff Prison and placed in the dock in London on a charge of murdering his wife. Till then he had never heard of her death, but before he could realise his position he was convicted and sentenced to death 1 Then he implored the warders and the governor to tell him the date of his wife’s death. “My good man,” said the governor, “you have only a short time to live. Don’t -worry about such a detail.”

Day after day, however, the prisoner asked this question, until he got the answer, “But I was safe in prison on that date.” he exclaimed. “ Then why didn't you say so at the trial ?” “Because I was neither asked nor allowed to ( say anything.” He was released