FEARFUL SCENE AT AN EXECUTION.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 141, 30 April 1879, Page 3

FEARFUL SCENE AT AN EXECUTION.

The American papers just received give a graphic account'of the execution of Benjamin Hunter, who was hanged for the murder of a musicseller in Camden, New Jersey. The execution took place on January 9, in public. On the Sunday previous Hunter was in his " cage" witli the gaoler Nisson, and talked vei-y freely. Hunter complained of chill, and drew a carpet round his feet. lie remained in this position for some time, keeping up a perpetual rubbing. His gaoler at last suspected something, and asked him to move. He did not do so, and the man gave him a push, when it was found he was sitting in a pool of blood. The culprit with a piece of tin had racked the skin off his instep and cut arteries. A spittoon, which he had managed to secrete beneath him, was-*full of blood,' and he * was in a sinking state. He was handcuffed and a doctor sent for, who found the culprit's pulse at 14S. He kept his teeth so tight together that it was quite impossible to force them apart, and the doctor gave him injections of whisky, but it was thought he could not hold out to the end. When the time of carry-ing-out the sentence arrived Hunter, it is said, was entirely unconscious. When the officials' came on the scaffold they

.soomc-fl to bo half carrying and ball' drawing an apparently lifeless forui, which was placed on a chair and bold then . Tireo uvu Mien lifted Hunter up, t-;> that the noose could be better a-ijustcd, afcer which the jerk was given and (be culprit partially disappeared. To the horror of the spectators, it- was found that Hunter's feet rested_ on the floor below. When the officials saw 'how matters stood they quickly caught bold of the rope and hoisted the man five feet above the ground. After hanging half an hour, the body was cut down and given up to the relatives.