MAN WHO HANGED CRIPPEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 367, 30 May 1928, Page 13

MAN WHO HANGED CRIPPEN

NOW CHEERY SAILOR ON SHIP AT LYTTELTON MAKING HIS LAST SEA TRIP Short, stouish, and cheerful, “Taffy” as his friends call him, is a member of the crew of ar- overseas steamer now at Lyttelton. Pleasant-mannered, and obviously a favourite with his shipmates, he has nevertheless, for 17 years, followed a calling that is not usually sought after, and the practitioners of which are not as a rule, very popular. He has never, in all his experience, had a complaint from one of his clients, for, not to disguise the true any longer, Taffy is a hangman. This is to be his last sea-trip, for the British Government has now decided to pay its hangmen a retaining fee. Formerly they were paid so much a “job.” The amount depended on the grade of the hangman, so that earning a living was not easy, except during a crime-wave. Now that a thoughtful Government has decided to keep its servants off the dole, • Taffy is giving up his spasmodic habit of following the sea. APPLES FOR A “JOB”

In the meantime, he is not averse from doing a little real busines when calling at New Zealand. He has applied for the task of executing Norgrove, the Auckland murderer, and liis friends think that, considering his wide experience, he stands a good change of getting the job. “No, 1 can’t tell you anything,” he said, when a Sun reporter asked him about his career. “It would get back to England somehow, and I’d get into trouble with the Home Office. One of the prison governors told about a condemned man’s last words in a paper at Home, and, got fined £ 250.” “Yes, copped it fair, that bloke did,” agreed another member of the crew. “Well, I did ‘do’ Crippen,” he admitted a little later. “Oh, I’ve bumped off a lot in my 17 at the game. “They pay a man a fabulous fee for doing a job in this country,” he said. “Twenty-five quid. But then you don’t have many murders here. Only had about five in the last six years, haven’t you?” A GRUUESOME RELIC “Seeing he’s come down here for information you might as well show that in the locker theer,” he said to one of his mates. “That” was a hank of rope. Tied to it was a red label giving particulars of the execution, in 1924, at which it had been used. Another less gruesome relic was a book of clippings, the stories of John Ellis, the famous English hangman, who had been Taffy’s mate. Not at all ashamed of his trade, Taffy is as unlike the hangman of tradition as anyone could be. But he is the real thing, and thinks that there is nothing wrong with “bumping a man off” if he deserves it.