WOMAN AT EXECUTION.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 December 1925, Page 1

WOMAN AT EXECUTION.

LONDON, Oct. H. The first woman to witness an execution, Airs Alary Bell, a junior bailie of Glasgow, remains steadfast to her decision to be preseiut to-day at the execution at Glasgow of John Keen, who was sentenced to death on September 3rd. for the murder of an Indian pedlar, and who, it was announced yesterday. had been refused a reprieve. Airs Bell told a reporter yesterday; “It \\ ill probably he tile most unpleasant task I have undertaken and the law does not compel me to go, but women did not come into public life to pick and choose their duties and I feel I ought to take the unpleasant with the pleasant. I know lam a woman, but L am also a magistrate with a magistrate’s duties. “I have never tainted in my life and I don’t feel nervous about it. AVomen who act in a hysterical or unbalanced way show themselves unfitted for public duties. I feel that if a faltered I should bo betraying the confidence of those who placed mo where I am. “People have tried to dissuade me from going oil account of a sixmonths’ illness 1. have just had, but women in public, life to-day are pioneers and they’Vo got to do their jobs thoroughly. That’s why I’m going to see the thing through.”