Deadlines of a Single Thorn

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1022, 12 July 1930, Page 18

Deadlines of a Single Thorn

■ss=l WAS detailed to deatli j r~y duty iu the prisons in ! -ip which I served 33 times. The unfortunates I k] watched were widely different in temperament. Some were tricky and had to be watched to prevent suicide, and some succeeded in cheating the gallows in ways never dreamed of by the watching warders, writes a correspondent of a London newspaper. What happened in one instance when I was on duty will give an idea. I was sitting, partly dozing, within the cell on an occasion 25 years ago when I became aware of great stillness. It was a dark morning in January, and suddenly I felt a presentiment of evil take hold of me and a shiver of unknown dread pass down my spine. I went to the prisoner's cot —he was dead! Calling to my companian. we pulled the bed-clothes away, and stood amazed at what we saw. All his underclothing was saturated with blood With a Tin Button Near the prisoner's knees we found an ordinary tin button. This he had pulled from his shirt, and with his teeth managed to get one little bit of its edge free. He had opened an artery at the bend of his arm. The most dramatic suicide that ever took place in a condemned cell happened when I was new to the service. The man was Lionel Damanche, an Italian, who had killed another Italian in a fit of jealous rage. Damanche was only 25 at the time

Fatal Rose Gives Condemned Man His Release ... Cobra Venorti Used ...

She itave him a rose til parttug. !■ f no (me suspected that death lurked in it. of his death, and had a loyal friend in his sweetheart. She came to see him three times each week of the three he awaited death, and on the last day of the last week he was fouud dead.

Each time she came to see her lover two warders stood within sight and hearing, as the rules required. We carefully watched every move between the two lovers on this, the last day of life for the man, and when partingtime arrived we had to keep a grip upon ourselves, for that parting was tragic.

She tried to be brave. She threw { him a kiss, and he responded with

passion. As she was about to » away he cried, in tones olentr*2? Anita. Anita. How can t you—how can 1 part with—•*turned, and taking a rose from S* black dress, threw it toward him ** lng, with tears in her eyes: ' *** "Take the rose with you to r, dise; it bears my perfume.— good-bye; wait for me. I far behind you.” m nt * * We picked up the rose and do, it to the prisoner. We put the cell, and he sat with the rosl S his hands, contemplating its with a smile. **'*•

That night, when he retired, he l on his back on the cot. and held e his clasped hands the rose-giftw Jf sweetheart. A peaceful smile <J!i: over his face. But that smiled? the smile of death. Damanche away while we watched and the perfume of the rose filled the of The innocent death-gift had fiuC from his cold hands and lay unona cement floor. *** The doctor picked it up, and no fully placed it within the foiij 4 prison towel. We who saw w ow w at his care, but later on a reached us. . . .

That rose had a single thorn, t was impregnated with the most dead) poison known to science, and toi£ pare it. £ls had been paid to a trawf ling showman for the only indj,. diamond cobra in the country. The sweetheart of Damanche hi reached Italy when the secret made known.

"Damanche died in his sleep ” Th. was the official verdict.