SMILES IN DEATH CHAIR.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 May 1920, Page 1

SMILES IN DEATH CHAIR.

AN AMAZING MURDERER. The extraordinary conduct of Gordon Fawcett Hamby, who was electrocuted in Sing Sing prison for the murder of bank clerks at .Brooklyn is told in a special dispatch from New York. It is the first detailed account of the last hours of this amazing murderer:

Hamby awoke at noon on the morning of his execution after sleeping sound ly for nearly ten hours. Warder Hawes called him, and Hamby handed him three letters. These he asked the warder to post after he was dead. One was. addressed to a girl/ The other two were addressed to his parents. He pled ged the warder to secrecy as to the letters and their contents. The condemned man had been wearing the death suit of black with a black shirt. “Can’t I have a lighLcoloured shirt/ warder ?” lie pleaded. Hri request was granted, and the guards brought him a white shirt. Hamby then asked if he could have a stiff collar and a coloured tie, but this request was refused. Hamby made a big breakfast and ate heartily. For dinner he selected steak, mushrooms, strawberries, and coffee. Frank Flannigan, another hold-up man under sentence of death, asked permission to “stand Hamby treat,” and it was granted. Flannigan ordered a box of cigars ,a box of bonbons, and ice cream, which Hamby divided amongst his twenty-nine death house companions after taking bis own portion. For supper lie ordered lobster salad. “I need ! not worry about my indigestion now,” , be explained. ' j Right up to the last Hamby was ’ cheerful. “Smile, doctor, smile,” bo said to Dr Squire as the -surgeon looked through the iron bars of bis cell. He immediately afterwards protested about the “gloomy looks” of one of the guards “He is taking bis duty too' seriously,” said Hamby. “He has not a smile in / him. Bring me a more cheerful foxlow. Frequently he twittered the war- i dor about the electric chair. i

His smiling face came as a distinct shock to 1.1 10 silont witnesses seated in the pew-like observation chairs. ' Nodding and beaming all over Hamby raised his cigarette, and filling his lungs with smoke, said, “Warder, may I say a word.” He was then standing in front of tho chair. He looked half-apo-logetic and wholly unconcerned. It was clear that he intended to make good his word to die like a man. “Certainly” said the warder. “Warder, I want to thank you for the wonderful treatment I lSive received here,” said Hamby. “You have been very kind to me. Nobody ever died in front of John B. Allen’s (probably his real name) gun unless lie had a chance.” He paused for a moment, and the same time filling his lungs once more with smoke. Then he added: “I don’t wish to appear in the light of a moralist, but you can tell all young men not to start doing wrong for once you start a career of crime you can never stop.’ 1 With these words Hamby deliberately flicked the short’ stub of his cigarette on to the mat in front of the death chair and stamped-on it with his left foot. He then quietly seated himself in tlie chair. He was still smiling. The keepers quickly hound, helmeted, and masked him.

The keepers afterwards said that never in their lifetime had a doomed man helped them so much as did Hamby. He* smilingly held liis head for the helmet and adjusted his own arms for the wrist hands. He went to his death a« a man' might enter a 'drawing room, they declared.