EXECUTION IN SYDNEY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 301, 22 September 1888, Page 4

EXECUTION IN SYDNEY.

Robert Bewart was executed at Darlinghurst Goal at 9.10 a.m. on September 11th. The mutilation of Thomas Park, which took place in one' of the cells of the Central Police Court on the afternoon of May 25 last, was the crime for which Hewart forfeited hia life, and seeing that the concurrence of opinion as to his sanity is unanimous on the part of all whb have seen him since his arrest it will stand out as one of the most inexplicable deeds of senseless cruelty perpetrated during these later years ot the colony's history. Canon Rich (gaol chaplain) attended assiduously upon the prisoner to the very last, and Mr Bowmaker, city missionary, also afforded him spiritual consolation in his extremity and followed him to the scaffold. The history of the man shows that he was a sailor, a native of the county of Durham, and that for the last beven years he had been employed in the intercolonial trade as a seaman. In spile of all warning to the contrary. In enteitained a lively hope of reprieve until the morning of the execution, when he fairly faced his approaching fate and met death with mingled sensibility and courage. Though very pale, he bore himself lirmly in the dread procession through the corridors and gallery leading to the scaffold, which he reached without assistance, as Canon Rich recited in a loud voice the last solemn words of the burial service. Standing beneath the beam, Hewart asked those standing near him to wipe the tears fiom Mis eyee, as his arms were pinioned, and upon this being done he gazed steadily upon the officials and reporter for the press in the >ard belcw, carried his eyes on to the eight or nine spectators beyond the palings, and then devoted his attention to those standing around him. Shaking hands with the two clergymen and those of the warders that he knew, he uttered with coherence, but in a low and agitated voice, several sentence?, which were only imperfectly au ible in the yard below. 1 1 1 hope the Lord will forgive me ;I am not deserving this death, but the Loid will save my soul." Then recognising Dr. Maurice O'Connor (the gaol surgeon), who was standing below, he called out "Good-bye, doctor." After a pause he added, " May the Loid have mercy on me ; I have written a statement ; all will see it ; after my death it will be made public." In a tiembling voice he added, " Good - bye ; good - bye to all that know me and give them my best respects." He did not fehrink when the cap \\ as placed over his head, and fortunately stood perfectly still during the five or six seconds in which the assistant hangman was neglecting his duty of pulling the lever. Finding the man incapable of understanding the signal to draw the bolt, the executioner (Nosey Bob) cried, " Let go !" in a loud voice. {Still the as a istant hesitated, and had the prisoner struggled or fainted a scene of horror might have resulted. As it was, the hangman rnshed to the lever with an oath, and instantaneous death followed upon ttet l >c moie than usually long drop of 8 feet. The condemned man did not move a limb, and there can be no doubt that the sentence of the law was mercifully carried out. The body was cut down at half-past 9 o'clock and conveyed to the morgue, where the Coroner's jury, consisting of six priboners and six free men, brought in the usual verdict. The prisoner's statement is a positive assertion of his innocence.