THE TABLES TURNED

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 256, 21 June 1932, Page 3

THE TABLES TURNED

HANGMAN JACK KETCH IS HIMSELF SUSPENDED ON FATAL TREE. OLD NEWGATE 'RECORDS. Of the hundreds of executions recorded in the Newgate Calendar, one of the most .interesting is that of John Price, the hangman (states the Melbourne Age). "When we commenced our labours among the musty records of eriminal convictions, little did we imagine that we would find the publie executioner, vulgarly called Jack Kitch, to have been himself suspended to that fatal tree to which he had tied up such a number of sinners," wrote the author of the Calendar. "Here have we the fullest proof of the hardness of heart created by repeatedly witnessing executions. The dreadful fate attending those who had died hy his hands, their sufferings of mind, confessions, and exhortations to the speetators to be warned by their example against the violation of the law, it seems, had no effect on Jack Ketch. "The callous wretch who in the year 1718 filled this office was named John Price. He was born in the parish 'of St. Martin's in the Fields, London, of reputable parents, his father having been in the service of his country, but unfortunately blown up at the dernolishing of Tangier. .Rrom her loss the widow was reduced to poverty, which rendered her unahle to give an education to her orphan children; but she succeeded in putting John apprentice to a dealer in rags, a business by which he might have earned an honest livelihood." k. A Profitable Job. Young Price joined the Navy, and served eighteen years before the mast, and after the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 he was paid off and discharged. He was appointed hangman for the City of London and County of Middelsex. In those days the office of hangman was not an unprofitable one. He received a small salary, and a bonus for piece work, and as hanging were nuerous he was in constant work. The dress of the malefaetors, who were sometimes gentlemen of property, belonged to the executioner, and his income was augmented by fees from the Company of Barber-Surgeons in payment for corpses delivered for dissection Price indulged in habits of intemperanee, and lived beyond his means. For a time he dodged his creditors hy changing his lodgings, but at last when returning from an execution at Tyburn he was arrested publicly in Holborn for a debt of 7s 6d. He was able to satisfy his creditor on the spot, and was released from custody; but other creditors pressed their claims, and being unable to pay them be was thrown into the Marshalsea, the prison for debtors, where at a later period William Dorrit, the father of Little Dorit, spent twentyfive years, and was known as the Father of the Marshalsea. Price was unable to obtain his diacharge before the next eriminal sessions. During a period of three and a half months, comprising the darkest period of the yeai', there were 479 cases of bag-snatching from pedestrians in the centre of London.